The 2026 World Cup is already being billed as the biggest tournament ever. It may also be the first AI World Cup.

BofA estimates direct tournament data — the match, player tracking, venue, broadcast, and operations data generated around the games themselves — could hit 90 petabytes, roughly 45 times Qatar 2022.

That is the real shift under the hood. The tournament is not only expanding from 32 teams to 48, but it is becoming a live data product, with every pass, sprint, shot, substitution, replay, crowd movement, stream, and wager feeding a much larger system.

Add AI models, simulations, operations, broadcasts, streaming, betting, and social platforms, and BofA estimates total data creation could approach 2 exabytes — the equivalent of roughly 45,000 years of 4K video.

In plain English: The World Cup is not just being watched. It is being measured, modeled, streamed, clipped, bet on, and optimized in real time.

In that setup, AI is not just a replay tool or a coaching aid.

BofA says teams will have access to AI models analyzing hundreds of millions of FIFA data points and more than 2,000 performance metrics in real time. Stadium digital twins and AI-run command centers are expected to help manage crowd flow, security, logistics, and operations across three countries and 104 matches.

The old version of the World Cup was a TV event. The new version looks more like a global operating system for live sports.

And that operating system has a money machine attached.

FIFA’s 2023-26 revenue budget is projected at $11 billion, up from $7.6 billion in the 2019-22 cycle, according to BofA. The biggest buckets are TV broadcasting, hospitality and ticket sales, and marketing rights — all areas that benefit from more matches, more viewers, more screens, and more ways to turn attention into revenue.

The same real-time layer is also showing up outside FIFA’s own revenue lines.

BofA cites Bookies.com estimates that US World Cup betting and prediction market trading could rise to $5.9 billion in 2026 from $1.8 billion during Qatar 2022, with $2.7 billion expected from prediction markets.

That makes the World Cup more than a tournament people watch. It is becoming an event people stream, model, bet on, and price in real time.

But a bigger business does not automatically mean a cleaner economic win for the places hosting it.

BofA cites estimates that the 2026 World Cup could add about $41 billion to global GDP, including $17 billion in the US, while supporting nearly 824,000 jobs globally.

Those are big numbers. They are also exactly the kind of numbers that make economists cautious around mega-events, where spending can be shifted rather than created and public costs can fall on host cities.