2026 World Cup soccer games start today in stadiums throughout North America.

11 of those venues are in the U.S., including one that's been renamed Dallas Stadium for now to avoid

any sponsored arena branding, despite the fact that it's actually located in our lovely neighboring

city of Arlington, Texas. Naming weirdness aside, I can tell you, FIFA fever is real,

with individual tickets selling for as much as $11,000,

which makes it all the more surprising to learn that generally,

buying a soccer team seems to be a great way to lose a small fortune.

From KERA in Dallas, this is Think.

I'm Chris Boyd.

The sport most of the world calls football

has somewhere between 3 and a half and

four billion global fans, along with 265 million people who play in organized leagues. But as my

guest will explain, even the legendary team's non-sucker fans have heard of tend to take in

pretty modest revenues, and the majority of them earn no profit

most seasons, even if they're playing well. Stefan Sheminski is professor of sport management at the

University of Michigan and a leading sports economist. Together with Simon Cooper, he is the author of

the 2026 World Cup edition of the book Soccernomics, why European men and American women usually

win and American men don't yet. Stefan, welcome to think. Nice to be with you. You note that

soccer has been a little late to the game when it comes to using data to drive decision-making

the way that like moneyball style number crunching

has transformed the business and the game of baseball.

How was baseball primed for that by all the people who love recording box scores while

...