ClimateHaven.com

• Climate change is altering the World Cup, with soccer players and fans facing rising heat risks during the world’s most popular sporting event. 

• Nearly all of the 2026 World Cup host stadiums now see more extremely hot days during the tournament period (June-July) than during the first North American World Cup in 1970. 

• Pollution from burning coal, oil, and gas accounts for 49% of all extremely hot June-July days since 1970, on average, across all 2026 host stadiums.

• Extreme heat is currently most common at stadiums in Miami, Mexico City, Houston, and Guadalajara. 

• The frequency of extremely hot June-July days has tripled, on average, across 10 repeat host cities since they previously held the tournament in 1986 (in Mexico) and 1994 (in the U.S.).

Global temperatures have risen sharply since the first World Cup in 1930. As the planet warms, soccer players and fans are facing more extreme heat — a serious health issue that makes it difficult for our bodies to cool off.

Extreme heat puts players and fans at risk of heat-related illness. It can also affect soccer players’ performance. 

Visitors from cooler climates may face greater heat risks, and the 2026 World Cup is set to break attendance records — drawing over 5 million fans to 16 stadiums across Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. from June 11 to July 19.   

Organizers are adapting to the heat with more evening matches in hotter cities and mandatory hydration breaks at all 104 matches. But most stadiums are open-air, leaving players and millions of fans exposed to peak summer heat. 

To compare heat risks across the 16 stadiums, Climate Central analyzed the annual number of extremely hot days during the tournament period (June-July) since the first North American World Cup in 1970 (hosted by Mexico). 

In this analysis, extremely hot June-July days are at least as hot as the hottest 10% of days at each stadium location during the 1991-2020 period (see Methodology for details). 

Across the 16 stadiums, these locally defined extreme heat thresholds ranged from 62.2°F in Mexico City to 89.2°F in Dallas. 

Extremely hot June-July days are on the rise at nearly all of the 2026 World Cup stadiums. 

• Fourteen of the 16 stadiums now see more extremely hot June-July days than during the first North American World Cup in 1970. San Francisco and Los Angeles are the two exceptions.

These extreme and potentially dangerous temperatures used to be rare during the 1970s, but now happen much more often.

• Extreme June-July heat is currently most common at stadiums in Miami, Mexico City, Houston, and Guadalajara. 
• Each of these stadiums averaged at least 10 extremely hot June-July days per year over the past decade. Only one (Houston) is fully climate-controlled. 

Human-caused climate change is contributing to the rise in extreme World Cup heat, according to analysis using Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index. 

• Heat-trapping pollution from burning coal, oil, and gas accounts for 49% of all extremely hot June-July days since 1970, on average across all 16 stadiums. 
• At 12 stadiums, at least one in every three extremely hot days since 1970 would not have happened without this heat-trapping pollution.