Dan Arnold, SVP of National Operations at Protos Security, Talks World Cup

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**Carol Massar** (0:07)
Well, the FIFA 2026 World Cup kicking off next week across Canada.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:10)
Did you get your tickets?

**Carol Massar** (0:11)
I did not. I don't know that I can afford them.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:14)
I know somebody who's going to Five Games.

**Carol Massar** (0:18)
Somebody.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:19)
I'm not joking, a friend of mine is going to Five Games. He's been saving up.

**Carol Massar** (0:23)
Did they mortgage his house?

**Tim Stenovec** (0:24)
He said, I was seven years old the last time this was in the US, in North America. I am going to go.
He's going to Four Games that he paid for, and one for work that a client is taking him to.

**Carol Massar** (0:36)
I get it.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:37)
Seattle, LA, New York, all over the country.

**Carol Massar** (0:40)
Also going to games are, of course, our team here at Bloomberg who covers sports. Bloomberg's Vanessa Perdomo, Maglione, will be at some of the games as well. She's been reporting out on what to expect some of the controversy because it's not inexpensive to go see some of these games. There's a lot of issues at play including security. So Vanessa joins us. Vanessa, of course, she is Bloomberg News Sports Business Reporter and host of the Bloomberg Business of Sports Podcast back at Bloomberg headquarters in New York City. Also with us is Dan Arnold. He's Senior Vice President of National Operations at the Managed Security Services Provider, Protos Security. He joins us from Omaha, Nebraska.
Dan, great to have you here with Tim, Vanessa, and myself. Security is a big issue. You've been in the industry for like a quarter of a century. We're not trying to date you or age you or anything, but you've seen a lot. You understand you've worked with corporate security. Put the World Cup games here in North America, here in the United States. Give us some context. How do you characterize this event in terms of spanned difficulty and heightened concerns?

**Dan Arnold** (1:46)
Carol, it's a great question. And Carol, Tim, Vanessa, thanks for letting me participate. Carol, you can join me in Kansas City if you want to come watch messy here in a couple of weeks.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:54)
I would love to.

**Dan Arnold** (1:56)
Yeah, let's do it. You'll sit right beside me. I'm going to be in the stands cheering with the others. But sitting in those stands, I think that's really where your question is. How do you get safely to those stands? This is like 11 sites across the country, right? In the United States alone, it's 11 simultaneous Super Bowls. And the challenge of security for those environments, 11 at one time, is a major strain on public and private, municipal and federal security partnerships.

**Vanessa Perdomo** (2:25)
Dan, I think the interesting thing here is how differently each city is handling it. We've had a lot of cities come out against the funding that wasn't released right away.
But how are different cities, in Kansas City, how is it being handled differently than New York? How are each city and the size of those cities go into play here?

**Dan Arnold** (2:45)
Yeah, the funding certainly is controversial and some challenge, but I know what the local folks are doing, and you get private security companies and the public law enforcement, the municipal leadership. I know well over a year, right? There's been very detailed planning, and those groups are very tight and very coordinated. And while they always will want more funds, setting up communication, understanding where forward operating centers will be, understanding how you're going to use technology in and around the venues, different routes, different patrols.
How are we going to get people safely in and out of these environments? So the coordination has been very strong, and it's been very exciting to watch these private public partnerships.

**Vanessa Perdomo** (3:29)
And just so we know, I mean, because of how differently everyone's handling it, is it up to each city to decide how much they want to invest into security? I mean, every city, like we said, it's different. The MetLife, getting to MetLife is completely different, and having to deal with potentially a NICS MBA finals overlap there is going to cost a little bit more and have a little bit more people. So how are the budgets decided there, and how do they spread out this money?

**Dan Arnold** (3:58)
Yeah, certainly with FIFA coordination, there are standards and minimum standards for safety and security. But these venues have great and strong security operations teams, right? They support NFL events and other events. So these venues have a lot of expertise and experience, and understand the funding it does take to provide safety and security for these events.