FC Dallas President Dan Hunt Talks World Cup

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
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**Julie Fine** (0:08)
Dan Hunt, president and co-owner of FC Dallas, always great to have you back here.

**Dan Hunt** (0:12)
Yeah, great to see you, Julie.

**Julie Fine** (0:13)
Also, I wanna talk to you being co-chair of the Organizing Committee in North Texas. I know this has been a long, long venture for you being involved with this. How do you feel going in?

**Dan Hunt** (0:24)
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm about to enter month 107 working on the World Cup, and it has finally all come to fruition, and it's so great to get that first kick coming up in a couple of days.

**Julie Fine** (0:35)
Dallas Sports Commission has estimated more than a $1.5 billion economic boost to the area up to over $2 billion. Does that come to fruition?

**Dan Hunt** (0:45)
Yes, I believe it will come to fruition. If you think about Super Bowls, the average visitor comes for less than three days, and we have nine Super Bowls with nine games in Dallas, but visitors in the World Cup come for just under 10 days. And so they'll be staying in our hotels, spending at restaurants, buying gas, going to retail. So I see a huge economic boom for our area.

**Julie Fine** (1:06)
Talk about now it's Dallas Stadium. We know it is AT&T Stadium, but it's certainly Dallas Stadium now. FIFA estimates that it will hold more than 90,000 people for World Cup games. If you do the math there, that's more than 845,000 for the total nine matches. First of all, what do you think of those numbers?

**Dan Hunt** (1:23)
I mean, the scale of this is so massive, and I don't know that we'll be in the 90s for World Cup games. We're raising the pitch at AT&T Stadium by four or five feet, which will have some seat kills associated with that. But if you even think about it, between 700,000 and 800,000 tickets is a huge number. Frankly, I need for there to be more tickets with the number of ticket requests that I've had over the last couple of months. And so it's great. In this entire tournament, there could be over 7 million tickets available.

**Julie Fine** (1:51)
Do you think the games in Dallas will sell out? There's been a lot of questions about sellouts, period.

**Dan Hunt** (1:57)
Yeah, I think the games in Dallas will sell out. If you think about the matches that we have, five great group stage games with powerhouses like England, Croatia, Japan, Holland, Argentina with Messi. I think those games will sell out.
When you get into the later games, the opponents aren't defined, right? Because those are elimination games and they're coming out of their different groups. But this is a sports city. It has a giant sports appetite. So I think the stadiums will be full.

**Julie Fine** (2:22)
I want to talk to you about the ticket prices. And again, I know those are set by FIFA. It does not go through the host committees. But there's a lot of questions about the pricing, how many were available and the rollout. Do you think that affects attendance overall?

**Dan Hunt** (2:35)
You know, it's hard to say. I don't think it will affect attendance. The rollout is a little bit non-traditional, how we would do it in American sports. But FIFA has their way of doing it.
And they've gotten some criticism over the prices. And they went back and repriced some cheaper tickets. And what I would say, you know, is there's a market demand for this. And the revenue they generate from the World Cup supports soccer globally. Their initiatives from grassroots to growing the men's game, growing the women's game, all the money associated with prize money, player money to clubs, and just in developing nations and helping the game along. And this is really their pinnacle, you know, tent pole moment that they have every four years. And so I know there's a, it's a delicate balance, right? You want it affordable for fans, because fans make the game, but you also need to be able to have, you know, the money to help support the game for the next four years.

**Julie Fine** (3:27)
Soccer is obviously extremely important to you. You are actually a sponsor in Dallas for the World Cup. You are a personal sponsor. Let's talk a little bit about why you decided to do that.

**Dan Hunt** (3:39)
Yeah, I'm proud to be a hometown supporter for Dallas. It was important to me. I mean, I can put my time and effort behind this, which like I said, has been almost 107 months.
And it also shows them my enthusiasm for it, to put financial support. I want this to leave a lasting legacy. And that support will go to help create many pitches and communities around and areas that need fields, safe spaces for kids to play soccer. And also help support our local organizing committee. I mean, putting on a World Cup is incredibly expensive. And also we have this gigantic fan fest at Fair Park for those that aren't going to World Cup matches. We'll have 35,000 people a day at Fair Park.