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My director of content joked that I have been “wilding” with my newsletter this month. In my defense, recent topics such as bankers being convicted of crime, tactile bills and the recent history of Riggs Bank did follow a logical, topical flow in my content planning process.

Today is different. I was genuinely not planning to write about the World Cup. But Alex and I ran out of time to go through the entire outline I wrote for the June episode of Bank Nerd Corner Squared, and no content should go to waste. Also: I call it soccer! If it’s good enough for Pope Leo, it’s certainly good enough for me.

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All the Money in the World (Cup)

Today’s newsletter is about the 2026 World Cup.

We’re almost two weeks into the biggest sporting event in the world this year and the biggest version of the tournament yet. This year’s tournament is taking place between the United States, Canada and Mexico. It features 48 teams, 104 games and runs for 39 days. If you’re like me, the World Cup is dominating your social feeds and hopefully all of your television or streaming time. Why fight it? To that end, this newsletter will touch on some news items that tangentially relate to finance: A look at the money sloshing around the games and a meditation on the similarities between regulations and referees.

Big Tournament = Big Money

Money and cost have been a major part of the conversation around the World Cup — and a big source of consternation and controversy. The Guardian reported that FIFA’s most recent financial report indicated it will bring in $9 billion this year from the tournament and $13 billion in the four-year cycle that cumulates in the tournament. The tournament has a $50 million prize for the winner; the overall pot totals $871 million, and all 48 countries are guaranteed to receive $12.5 million for playing.

FIFA is a nonprofit and has indicated it will reinvest about $11.7 billion of the $13 billion in revenue “to boost global football development,” according to the Guardian, quoting the organization. About $3 billion is direct allocation to the 211 member federations and six continental confederations. US Soccer, the national federation of the United States, is expecting to receive about $100 million from FIFA, based on a 1% revenue share of tournament proceeds with Canada Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation.

Most of its 2026 World Cup revenue — $4.3 billion — comes from the sale of global TV rights, the value of which has increased from $3.4 billion for the 2022 World Cup and $3.1 billion in 2018. Increasing the number of teams increased the number of games from 64 to 104, generating content for broadcasters. Additionally, the North American locations means the game times are more attractive to marketers compared to prior tournaments’ kickoff times.

Corporate sponsorships with companies like Adidas, Aramco and Coca-Cola have brought in $2.7 billion, and licensing deals are adding another $670 million. On the financial services front, Bank of America Corp. is FIFA’s first-ever global sponsor in the banking category; Visa is also a sponsor.

What Everyone is Actually Mad About

I didn’t get tickets to any of the games. I put my name and order into a lottery and lost, and that was pretty much as time and money as I was willing to expend.

Tickets to the 2026 tournament are expensive — multiples more than previous tournaments. FIFA expects to bring in about $3 billion in ticket sales and hospitality. Tickets to the July 19 final went for almost $11,000, which the Guardian wrote was “nearly seven times” the price of the most expensive ticket to the 2022 final. The organization said that more than 1,000 tickets to the final were sold for $60.

I won’t pretend to understand the machinations that FIFA is doing to squeeze every last dollar from ticket sales, but griping and scrutinizing about allocation practices and prices for high-demand events is nothing new (Taylor Swift’s Era tour springs to mind). But to state the obvious, World Cup tickets are an extremely scarce good; even though there are tens of thousands of seats for sale in each of the more than 100 games, there is more demand than supply. So it’s a real economic conundrum to price them in a way that feels fair to a wide swatch of consumers with varying levels of financial resources and discretionary income. FIFA has used dynamic pricing for desirable seats in its elimination games, according to The Atlantic, which could irritate some would-be attendees.

And then there’s the resale problem. Tickets that are repriced higher on resale sites but manage to sell arguably indicate that the initial price was below what the market could bear (“the market,” like the economy, functioning here as a nebulous, analogous force that somehow represents all consumers but embodies none of them). It’s a pricing inefficiency to sell something valuable below its true value. Of course, an organization can decide to leave some money on the table because it wants all types of fans to be able to attend an event, or because it doesn’t want to be seen as a moneygrubber. Not FIFA!

“Although aggressive pricing makes for terrible public relations, under-pricing creates different problems: ticket shortages, financial incentives for speculators to buy up seats en masse and resell them to real fans at huge markups, the diversion of revenue to third parties who contribute nothing to the cost of putting on events,” wrote Judd Kessler, an economics professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, in The Atlantic.

As far as the actual delta between stadium seats, Amanda Mull at Bloomberg News did the hard work of comparing the experience of watching a soccer game from a five-figure, sideline seat and a nosebleed seat at Gillette Stadium this spring. The sideline location, an indoor-outdoor beer hall near the players’ tunnel, was close enough to the field that it showed up in a highlight clip that evening; it comes with self-serve beer taps and a buffet. The trade-off was that the game itself was difficult for Mull to watch at field level and behind a goal, necessitating attendees watch the large video screens mounted in the stands. The cheap seats were high enough that Mull’s jacket didn’t feel warm enough, and at a steep angle that felt like a fall was imminent. But the irony of being that high up is that the tactics of the teams become visible, since you can see the entire field.

Play Stupid Games...

Analysts covering the betting industry expect between $2.9 billion and up to $4.4 billion to be wagered at legal American sportsbooks for the tournament, according to a June article from ESPN. That compares to $1.76 billion that was wagered on Super Bowl LX and $3.3 billion wagered during the 2026 NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. Driving that activity include more matches, “advantageous time zones” for an American audience and a general increasing interest in soccer.

Even before pool play ended, the tournament promised to be full of upsets and surprises. One such surprise was the draw on June 15 between Spain, which was heavily favored to go far in the tournament and potentially win, and Cape Verde, an expansion team that included a player recruited via LinkedIn. The tie caused a trader on Polymarket to lose nearly $1 million in an event contract truth machine bet that, until the final whistle, was seen as “a nearly certain” win, according to Bloomberg News.

“Some traders place big bets on highly-likely outcomes in the hopes of capturing small profits on relatively low-risk bets,” Bloomberg wrote. In this case, the user placed $1.1 million on an outcome of Spain winning and would’ve made $85,000 from that outcome. As my friend Ryan said when I told him this story, “Low risk ain’t no risk I guess.”

Overall, there were a total of $64 million in trades on Polymarket on the match and about $2.4 billion in total volume through June 15.

Football is Life!

What is a game without its rules?

I’m a soccer referee and am personally cheering for the officials who have spent at least four years preparing for this tournament, including the eight U.S. referees. I see a lot of parallels between the role of a referee and how I conceptualize the work of being a bank examiner. Now, I’ve never worked as a bank examiner, but I mentioned this parallel once to Former Acting Comptroller Mike Hsu and he agreed with me, so stay with me here. With that in mind, let’s discuss some similarities between soccer and banking! These won’t be perfect comparisons; I’m just having some fun and trying to make some connections. (Also, I am not sharing my soccer insights in any official capacity — this is my conceptualization of the game.)

Don’t Hate the Player

Referees and bank examiners didn’t write the rules of competition or regulations, but they are responsible for their enforcement. They also show up to the pitch or the bank, which means there are interpersonal dynamics; both groups need to be mindful of their interactions and responses with their counterparts. Referees and examiners also receive constant training, direction and feedback from their governing bodies; they must respond to changes in the environment or adjust rules to address evolving tactics and strategies. For example, the governing rules committee has changed the interpretation of concepts like handball and offside over the years; what was an infraction a decade ago might be fine today.

Misconduct

The range of disciplinary actions in soccer, and their escalation, goes: warning, caution, second warning, second caution and send-off. Two cautions are punished with a send-off, but players can also receive direct send-offs.

Everything listed is an option, and referees can select from this list as the incident, player or game warrants. Some conduct is interpreted as always meriting a caution or send-off, and some conduct or plays can be managed with warnings, which gives the referee flexibility and options to manage differently in the future. Importantly, discipline and misconduct from the referee isn’t just about punishing a player; it helps establish appropriate and inappropriate conduct for everyone.

Banking has its own range of enforcement actions for institutions, specific to each regulator (Here is the OCC’s list and here’s the FDIC’s exam manual). Broadly, these categories include actions like Matter Requiring Attention and its siblings, MRIA and MRBA, consent and cease and desist orders and prompt corrective action. Some of these are informal and not public; others are formal and public. The regulators can also take actions against individuals. But there doesn’t seem to be an accumulation penalty for having numerous consent orders, and bank regulators these days don’t often reach for the most severe action, a PCA, given the relative health of the industry.

Home Teams + Local Refs

The FIFA Laws of the Game hold everywhere, but different competitions can have rules that differ from the laws. Referees will follow the laws, except in situations where the rules of competition create exceptions. Additionally, referees and teams are somewhat bound by geography. A home team might enjoy the patronage of a home crowd but might also see a referee that lives in the same town more frequently than a ref who lives 100 miles away. Some leagues have the resources to bring in a variety of referees to negate concerns about familiarity.

The difference between the laws of the game and the rules of competition reminds me a little bit of dual banking. While U.S. banks mostly follow the same banking laws, where a bank is domiciled and what charter it has can cause some compliance nuances. The charter type a bank selects could influence the rotation of examiners that visit a bank.

More broadly, national banks are governed by federal law, leveraging federal preemption in certain situations where a state law differs from federal law. Banks with a state charter follow that state’s laws. Still, the DIDMCA lawsuits show that there are some edge-case exceptions among state-chartered banks, and lawsuits over interest on escrow accounts and the OCC’s involvement in the Illinois interchange law are two examples of disagreements involving state law and national banks.

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FROM THE VAULT

What’s on my mind and filling my time:

🧸 People’s possessions: are so weird, and they own so many things. That was my main takeaway from Caity Weaver’s recent piece in The Atlantic. Related: I am moving to a new apartment soon and am both stressing out that I own so many things and how much furniture I need to buy.

👀 Airplane puzzle pieces: This is the last week of pool play in the tournament, which means Austin Sagan's job at American Airlines is about to get a lot harder, according to this article in The Wall Street Journal. Sagan is a network planning analyst who helps the airline adjust its flight schedule for special events, like fans trying to follow their teams around as they advance through the World Cup.

🎙️ On Bank Nerd Corner: Alex and I discuss Bill Pulte’s side hustle and signs of life at the CFPB before the aforementioned World Cup chatter. Great companion listening if you couldn't get enough of today's newsletter!

Thanks for reading today's newsletter! Next week is the end of the quarter and will be the regular quarterly review/wrap!