Tri‑National hosting and marketing of the FIFA World Cup 2026 (USA–Canada–Mexico)
A structured literature review through a complex adaptive systems lens
Keywords:
Mega‑Sport Events, Sport Marketing, Cross-Border Mobility, Security & Cybersecurity, Environmental Sustainability, Event Legacy, Complex Adaptive SystemsAbstract
The 2026 FIFA World Cup—co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico—represents a landmark experiment in tri-national mega-sport event governance, with implications that extend well beyond sport into public policy, mobility regulation and social inequality. This article presents a structured literature review of academic and curated grey sources (January–March 2025) and synthesizes findings using reflexive thematic analysis within a Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) framework. The review identifies eight mutually reinforcing domains: (1) multi-level governance and inter-organizational coordination, (2) cross-border mobility and visa/entry policy, (3) operations and large-scale logistics, (4) public health for mass gatherings, (5) physical security and cybersecurity, (6) environmental sustainability and climate risk, (7) integrated communication, branding and service management, and (8) the distribution of economic, social and tourism legacies. Read through a CAS lens, these domains exhibit non-linear interdependencies, where interventions in one area (e.g., mobility rules, security protocols or sustainability measures) can generate cascade effects for inclusion, risk exposure and perceived legitimacy across the three host nations. On this basis, the article formulates a set of governance and policy recommendations—including a Trilateral Command Center, a harmonized Fan-ID regime, a joint cyber-defense task force and a transparent tri-national legacy fund—and outlines implications for future research on mega-event governance, cross-border coordination and the social consequences of large-scale sport events in complex political systems.
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