Welcome everybody to soccer 101.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and this week we're pondering the big question that gets asked about every four years or so.

Why would a country want to host a World Cup and what all goes into actually making it happen? Here with me to get into it are Joe Lowry. Hello, Joe. Ahoy. And Graham Ruffin. Hello, Graham. Hello, Taylor Rotwell. I know it's just the recording delay, but there's always a moment when it sounds like both of you are surprised to hear your names read aloud. Joe, were you surprised or just giving it a dramatic pause?

I didn't know I was on this show. What are we talking about? I don't know what's going on

right now. Most people call me G Money, so here my actual name is... I don't believe you and refuse

to acknowledge that comment. Gentlemen, let's talk World Cups for a moment because we obviously have one looming, which begs the question, why would a country want to host a World Cup? What do you have to do to make it happen? How do you win a bid? Bride people. But if you don't bribe people, how else can you win a bid? Many other things that won't involve a fire truck of lawyers. Graham, let's start

with the basic question. Why would a country want to host a World Cup, aside from getting

to hang out with all the many, many fun FIFA executives? And they are fun, I've heard. So this is very

base-level stuff, but let's start at the start,

I guess. So the men's World Cup is the biggest event in sport, and the Women's World Cup is

a big event as well, and is getting bigger and bigger with every iteration. So that is

naturally appealing. The last World Cup in Russia drew 3.5 billion viewers from all over the world.

Hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of fans visit host nations for the duration of the tournament.

It's an opportunity to put your country in the world's focus for a whole month.

And in soccer nations, which is at this point it feels like most

nations around the world, it very much is the focus of basically public discourse for a whole

month. So there has to be some value there. If countries had collective egos, then hosting a

World Cup would be good for that collective ego. The case has also

made that hosting a World Cup can be of great financial benefit, and that is often how bids are

justified. Sometimes this materialises and pans out, so one of the best examples I could find was that

the 2002 World Cup, which was hosted by

Japan and South Korea, it was reported that 31,000 jobs were created as a result of hosting that tournament.

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