It’s pretty wild we have 95 days until Atlanta’s first 2026 FIFA World Cup match. City/state, stadium, and FIFA officials gathered at Mercedes-Benz Stadium today to hold panels walking journalists through exactly how they’re preparing our fair city for what will be the largest sporting event ever held on U.S. soil.
As you can imagine, a smorgasbord of work has gone into getting Atlanta ready to host this event even before the city was officially announced as a host 1300 days ago. The panel covered everything from airport capacity to road construction to a wayfinding project designed by Savannah College of Art and Design students, all hosted by our good pal Kevin Egan. Take a look below at some of what stood out, and keep an eye out on ScarvesAndSpikes.com for a full article solely related to the new grass pitch.
I have to start with the location at which most folks will experience Atlanta for the first time: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The world’s busiest airport processes over 300,000 passengers every single day, which is almost double the population of the entire country of Curacao, who’ll be playing their matches in Houston, Kansas City, and Philadelphia. Augustus Hudson, the Deputy GM of SR Operations at Hartsfield-Jackson said they’re expecting zero operational disruptions, despite the fact that number will balloon to 500,000 travelers (or getting close to the population of Cape Verde, who’ll be playing in Atlanta against Spain on June 15th) during the tournament itself.
“We have to keep the airport moving, because anything that affects our airport affects global travel.”
There are tons of improvements still happening over at the airport, including a new south deck parking facility opening in May, tons of bathroom upgrades, and improved signage and way-finding systems across the terminals. Mr. Hudson’s message to the airport staff was essentially that they’ve handled big before, and this is no different.
Then we move to our old friend MARTA. MARTA is rolling out a new fare payment system starting during the next two weeks that will let riders tap in using a credit card or any standard payment method, with no Breeze card needed. Jonathan Hunt, MARTA’s interim GM, noted it’s the largest financial technology investment the agency has made in 20 years.
On the infrastructure side, and you’ve probably been noticing it for quite some time if you take the trains to Atlanta United matches, a billion-dollar station rehabilitation program is already underway. They’ve started with the stations closest to Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the Fan Fest area before spreading out across the system. On match days, MARTA plans to run trains at extremely short headways (or what Mr. Hunt translated as the time between a train arriving at the station), with additional trains staged in pocket tracks throughout the system ready to go. They’ll also have more than two dozen buses staged regionally as overflow if rail demand spikes or if there’s some sort of issue.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE (I’m genuinely excited about these, if you can’t tell). MARTA unveiled its transit ambassador uniforms at the panel, and they’re legitimately amazing. Hundreds of ambassadors will be stationed throughout the system on match days wearing the new kits, which feature the MARTA rail map across them.
The ambassadors will be there to help visitors navigate the system, and MARTA is also adding multilingual announcements targeted initially at the languages of the teams playing in Atlanta’s first few matches, with more to come depending on who advances into the later rounds. They’re also dropping a limited-run MARTA World Cup commemorative card at the station vending machines during the tournament, kind of like those collector cards from the 1996 Olympics.
Jumping from MARTA over to the surface streets, Georgia DOT stated they’ve been working on World Cup traffic management for two years. They’ve built a special “playbook” specifically designed for the tournament, covering basically every mode of transport, from driving to walking, biking, or MARTA. They have engineers and operations folks who’ll be running the traffic management center throughout the entire World Cup, and probably the most prominent example most natives would recognize are the big message signs on interstates, which will communicate real-time information to drivers. DOT also has a handful of projects like road resurfacing, restriping, lighting upgrades, and beautification work around downtown, which are all on track to be finished before the tournament starts.
Beyond the logistics stuff, the city has also launched an initiative called Showcase Atlanta. The whole goal is aimed at making sure local businesses, especially small businesses in and around Atlanta, are ready for the influx of visitors and actually prepared to benefit from it. That includes access to small business loans, workshops, and readiness seminars. I’ll throw in a shameless plug here for Kevin Egan’s new venture that is set to open prior to the World Cup, an Irish pub named The Irish Exit, which will be one of many examples of how the city wants to elevate locals. The whole idea is to pull visitors out of the downtown core and into Atlanta’s neighborhoods across the city. Obviously, Atlanta is more than the area adjacent to the Benz, and they want to encourage folks to experience everything.
Katie Kirkpatrick, President and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, also made a pretty stark reference to 1996, when many Atlanta residents and employers essentially left downtown during the Olympics, leaving the city quieter than it should have been during a historic moment. Their message this time around is much different, encouraging everyone to stay, engage, bring employees in, set up a watch party at the office, or go to the Fan Fest. And speaking of the fan fest, I’ll let their website do the talking, but it genuinely looks like it’s going to be the best one in the country.
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One of the more interesting things to come out of the panel was the work being done by students at the Savannah College of Art and Design on what they’re calling “Atlanta’s Last Mile.” It essentially refers to the stretch of downtown between transit hubs, hotels, and the stadium and Fan Fest areas. SCAD students worked on developing a zoned way-finding system that guides fans through getting to the Benz and Centennial Olympic Park. The signage is basically designed to work without language via the use of pretty obvious soccer-related imagery, so international visitors who don’t speak English can navigate the city on their own.
Of course, SCAD is an art college, so it goes without saying that they’re also leading the charge in designing physical art pertaining to the World Cup. The first physical piece from students is an Atlanta-branded soccer ball installation designed as a photo op for fans, which was already on display in the room where the panel was held. More permanent pieces including murals and public art are planned to make downtown more walkable, and all that ties into the legacy that the World Cup will leave here in Atlanta, just like the Olympics did.
It’s wild it’s getting so close, but we’re almost there, y’all. We’ll continue to keep you update here on ScarvesAndSpikes.com, so let us know down below what you think of how the city is preparing so far, and what your plans are for when it all kicks off!
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Man, I hope MARTA gets their shite together. The MLK station has been an absolute train wreck with payment kiosks that don’t work (talking 3 out of 4 on most days) etc. It also smells like a combination of weed and whiz (the official aroma of MARTA).