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    North America Got the 2026 World Cup. Now Who Will Get the Final?

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    A decision on which city will host the men’s 2026 World Cup final is expected in the fall. Leaders from the New York area are making their case, with Dallas and Los Angeles also in the running.It has been almost five years since a bid from the United States, Canada and Mexico beat out a proposal from Morocco to host soccer’s 2026 men’s World Cup. Now the competition has turned intramural.The stadiums for the tournament have been chosen, but FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, has not yet said which one will host the final game.Officials from New York City and New Jersey are starting a concerted push to land that final for MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands, including an event in Times Square on Thursday morning with Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Mayor Eric Adams of New York.“Eric and I believe strongly that we have the most compelling case by far to get the best package, including the final,” Murphy said in a joint interview with Adams on Wednesday morning.At most other World Cups, there is an obvious choice for the final game. Moscow, Rio de Janeiro and Paris were always going to be chosen when their countries hosted the tournament. But there are several attractive candidates for the 2026 final, to be played July 19. (Though Mexico and Canada will host some of the tournament’s 104 games, the bidders agreed that the majority of the matches — and everything from the quarterfinals on — would be in the United States.)The only previous time the United States hosted the World Cup, in 1994, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., got the final. This time, SoFi Stadium is the Los Angeles-area site on the list of stadiums for 2026. But that stadium was built primarily for N.F.L. football, and there is concern that the field there is too narrow for soccer, which would require removing some seats, and reducing capacity.Dallas has also emerged as a leading candidate, in part because nearby AT&T Stadium can potentially be expanded to offer over 100,000 seats for soccer.But Adams and Murphy are making their case that the New York City area outshines those places as the best spot for the game.“Yes, L.A. is known for its extravaganza and its appeal of Hollywood,” Adams said. “But I think New York is the largest stage.”Murphy said: “New York is the international capital of the world. With no disrespect to Dallas, we’re taking about New York.”The other contenders are not lying down. “We are making our case to the committee right now that we would be the perfect site for the semifinals and finals,” Dan Hunt, president of Dallas’s bid, told the local NBC affiliate late last year. “We have two great airports, we have the infrastructure, we have the hotels, we have AT&T Stadium. We have what it will take to host what I call ‘the Super Bowl on steroids.’”Kathryn Schloessman, head of the Los Angeles bid, said, “Our region is so fortunate to have a world-class stadium and infrastructure to be in consideration for hosting the final and other prominent matches.”The decision will ultimately be made by top FIFA officials, up to and including President Gianni Infantino, with input from the regional governing body, Concacaf, and U.S. Soccer. It is expected in early fall.Whether the New York region wins the final or not, there are likely to be about eight games at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. “Eight games is like eight Super Bowls in six weeks, so no matter what the games look like it’s going to be a huge success,” Murphy said. “We’ll sell every one of them out; it doesn’t matter who’s playing.”“But clearly to get the final — and we think we’re in the best position to get the final — is the icing on the cake that is almost unparalleled in sports,” he added. “There is both prestige and I’m sure an extra boost to the regional economy.”If a “huge success” is coming either way, why is there such a hunger to land the final? Adams acknowledged another motivation: “I’m extremely competitive, and I want to beat other cities to have the final. We were chosen, now it’s time for us to bring home the Cup.” More

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      Saquon Barkley (and Fans) Returned. But So Did Last Season’s Giants.

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      Despite the return of the Pro Bowl running back, a ballyhooed defense and a readmitted home crowd, the Giants looked listless in a loss to the Denver Broncos.Running back Saquon Barkley dodged and bulled his way to a 5-yard gain on the first play from scrimmage in Sunday’s game between the Giants and Denver Broncos. Barkley, the cynosure of the Giants’ offense until a torn knee ligament kept him out of 14 games last season, seemed whole again, and the home fans at a packed MetLife Stadium leapt to their feet in response.Moments later, the Giants third-year quarterback, Daniel Jones, threw a 42-yard pass to his favorite receiver, Darius Slayton, which advanced the Giants into Denver territory. There was more unbridled euphoria in the grandstand.Fans were back for the opening game.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesThe Giants honored the 20th anniversary of 9/11.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesBut then the Giants lost eight yards on the next two plays, squandering any chance of scoring even a field goal. One drive later, the Giants ran three desultory plays without gaining a yard and punted. Soon they were trailing Denver by three points. Then by 10 points, then by 17.A new Giants season suddenly looked no different than last year’s 10-loss disappointment. The fans slumped back into their seats.The opening day of a football season always has an air of rebirth — until it feels like a repeat.As the final seconds of Denver’s thorough 27-13 thumping of the Giants wound down — the home team would score a meaningless touchdown on the game’s final play — the MetLife stands were mostly empty. That had been the case last season, because of pandemic restrictions. The void this time, however, felt different, especially since the remaining soundtrack of the event was the raucous cheering of a few thousand Broncos fans.In the end, Barkley rushed for only 26 yards on 10 carries. Jones, charged with reducing the costly turnovers that have been the scourge of his first two seasons as a starter, lost a fumble deep in Denver territory at a pivotal juncture of the game. The Giants’ much ballyhooed defense repeatedly failed to force the Broncos off the field as Denver converted seven of 15 third-downs — and all three fourth-down tries.It left Joe Judge, the second-year Giants coach, cognizant of why Giants fans scurried for the MetLife Stadium exits by the midpoint of the fourth quarter, if not earlier.“We have to earn their respect,” Judge said of the fans. “We have to give them something to cheer about. There was great energy and a great atmosphere in the stadium but we’ve got to do more as a team to make them want to stay and cheer.”Rather than rebirth, the Giants were on repeat.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesRunning back Saquon Barkley was not enough to reverse last season’s disappointment.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesThe star of the game was the resurgent Denver quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, who completed 28 of 36 passes for 264 yards and two touchdown passes. The less-observed constituent who had significant impact on the outcome was the Broncos’ offensive coordinator, Pat Shurmur, the former Giants coach who on Sunday flummoxed his old team’s defense.Jones completed 22 of 37 passes for one touchdown. Neither quarterback had an interception and each was sacked twice, although Bridgewater faced only sporadic pressure from the Giants pass rush.After a 15-play drive that took nearly nine minutes, Denver opened the game’s scoring in the second quarter with a 23-yard field goal by Brandon McManus. On their next possession, the Giants came out aggressively on first down with Jones throwing a 17-yard pass over the middle to receiver Kenny Golladay, one of the team’s foremost off-season free agent acquisitions.Four plays and a defensive pass interference penalty later, the Giants pushed into the Broncos’ end of the field. On a first down, Sterling Shepard, the longest-tenured Giant, ran a lengthy crossing route and caught a precise Jones pass before diving into the end zone for a 37-yard touchdown that gave the home team a 7-3 lead.In roughly two minutes at the end of the first half, led by the poise, elusiveness and accuracy of Bridgewater, Denver had regained the lead. Bridgewater completed six consecutive passes, the last a 2-yard touchdown toss to Tim Patrick that sent the Broncos into the game’s intermission with a 10-7 lead.Denver picked up where it left off after receiving the second-half kickoff. Although the Broncos’ running game was nonexistent, the Giants’ pass defense was still overwhelmed, in part because the feeble Giants offense kept it on the field for so much of the game.Giants fans showed their displeasure with the team’s performance late in the game.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesJones fumbled on his run in the fourth quarter, all but sealing the loss for the Giants.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesIt took the Broncos 16 plays to traverse 75 yards, as Bridgewater continually used his legs to extend plays. On the final play of the drive, a fourth-and-1 at the Giants 4-yard line, Bridgewater scrambled to his right as he was closely pursued by Giants safety Xavier McKinney, who was grasping at Bridgewater’s headgear and shoulder pads. On the run, Bridgewater flipped the football into the end zone where Albert Okwuegbunam made an acrobatic catch in traffic for the Broncos’ second touchdown, extending their lead to 17-7.On the following possession, the Giants did mount a comeback — of sorts.After the Giants advanced to the Denver 22-yard line, Jones burst through the middle of the Broncos defensive front for a 7-yard run then wrapped two hands around the football in an attempt to prevent a fumble. But Denver linebacker Josey Jewell punched the ball free from Jones’s grasp and Jewell’s teammate Malik Reed fell on the football at the Denver 15-yard line. Once again, a promising Giants possession ended with a Jones turnover that resulted in a 36-yard McManus field goal that increased the Giants deficit to 20-7.The game was, at that point, all but over.Von Miller of the Broncos hugged his mother after the season opening win on the road.Michelle Farsi for The New York Times More

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      New Study Finds Covid Spikes After N.F.L. Games With Fans

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      As the N.F.L. makes plans to return to stadiums at full capacity this season, researchers published findings that “fan attendance at N.F.L. games led to episodic spikes” in the number of Covid-19 cases.Major League Baseball, the N.B.A. and other sports leagues have started to let fans back into their stadiums and arenas, with most teams limiting attendance to 10 to 20 percent of capacity, but some allowing more. The N.F.L. has even grander plans. Last week, Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league hoped to open all of its stadiums at full capacity when the season kicked off in September.“All of us in the N.F.L. want to see every one of our fans back,” Goodell said in a conference call with reporters.Yet new research submitted to The Lancet, a scientific journal, in late March suggested that there was a link between the games that had large numbers of fans in the stands and an increase in the number of infections in locales near the stadiums. The study, which is being peer reviewed, is one of the most comprehensive attempts to address the potential impact of fans at N.F.L. games.The authors, led by Justin Kurland of the University of Southern Mississippi, used the number of positive cases not just from the counties where the 32 N.F.L. teams play, but also from surrounding counties to track the spread among fans who may have traveled to games from farther away. After adjusting the figures to eliminate potential false positives and days when counties did not report cases, they found surges in infection rates in the second and third weeks following N.F.L. games that were played with more than 5,000 fans in attendance. The study does not prove a causal link between fan attendance and Covid-19 cases, but suggests that there may be a relationship between the two.“The evidence overwhelmingly supports that fan attendance at N.F.L. games led to episodic spikes” in the number of Covid-19 cases, the researchers wrote.Jeff Miller, the N.F.L.’s executive vice president for communications, public affairs and policy, said in an interview that public health officials in cities and states where N.F.L. teams play found no “case clusters” following the 119 games held with fans in attendance. Miller added that a study done by researchers at the M.I.T. Sports Lab, which was unpublished and independent, found no notable increases in Covid-19 infection rates “in the appreciable time frame following the games.” That study also looked at Covid numbers from surrounding counties but compared them to “synthetic” data used as a control group and found little difference between the two sets of numbers.“Obviously, that was heartening,” Miller said. A study by the Florida Department of Health determined that Covid-19 infection rates were “slightly higher” in the Tampa area compared to the rest of Florida in the weeks after the city hosted the Super Bowl in February. Zack Wittman for The New York TimesMiller pointed to a study released by the Florida Department of Health that was not peer reviewed which determined Covid-19 infection rates were “slightly higher” in the Tampa area compared to the rest of Florida in the weeks after the city hosted the Super Bowl in February. A handful of people were infected after attending related N.F.L. events, but the state’s health department found that most transmission of the virus was “likely from private gatherings, in homes, or unofficial events at bars and restaurants.”About 1.2 million fans attended N.F.L. games last season, as owners bet that the games would not inflame the pandemic any further. Teams sanitized their stadiums and asked fans to wear masks and sit away from other groups.More than a dozen N.F.L. teams, including the three franchises in Florida and the two in Texas, hosted games with more than 5,000 spectators during the regular season. The Dallas Cowboys led the league in attendance in 2020, averaging more than 28,000 fans at its home games, followed by the Jacksonville Jaguars (15,919), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (14,483) and Kansas City Chiefs (13,153).Kevin Watler, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, said contact tracers found “very low numbers” of positive coronavirus tests among people who attended Buccaneers home games during the season, and researchers do not believe those people spread the virus to others.Dr. Rex Archer, the director of health for Kansas City, Mo., said health departments in the region detected no spread of the virus linked to Chiefs home games. The 1,000 or so fans who sat in club seats had to test negative to be allowed to attend, a requirement that prevented up to a dozen people per game from entering the stadium. Bars and restaurants, though, were harder to track because some were shut while others, particularly in neighboring Kansas, were not.“You could have 15,000 socially distanced fans at Arrowhead Stadium, yet some people packed into a bar,” he said.The league cited a separate study preprinted in February that showed that attendance at N.F.L. and college football games last season did not have a “significant” impact on the spread of Covid-19 but only tracked positive cases in counties where those games were held. The research submitted to The Lancet, however, tracked more extensive data from surrounding counties.Positive cases of coronavirus could not solely be traced to N.F.L. games in part because stadiums are not the only place fans gathered. “You could have 15,000 socially distanced fans at Arrowhead Stadium, yet some people packed into a bar” on game days, said Dr. Rex Archer, the director of the health department in Kansas City, Mo.Chase Castor for The New York TimesWhile Goodell is eager to see full stadiums in the fall, John Mara, the president of the Giants, was more measured. His team and the Jets will coordinate with the governor’s office in New Jersey before deciding how many fans can attend games at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford during the 2021 season.“As the vaccines continue to roll out, hopefully the positivity rate will be going down in the coming months,” Mara told reporters last week.In a statement, Miller of the N.F.L. said the league would, as it did last year, follow the recommendations of local, county, state and federal public health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and “continue to uphold with the advice and partnership of medical and public health experts as we look to the 2021 season.”Trying to establish definitive causal links between a single event and a change in infection rates across a large metropolitan area is complicated. The authors of The Lancet study concede that their research only shows that two events — games with fans and increasing positive Covid-19 rates — coincided. Other events like political rallies, the reopening of colleges or holiday travel may have contributed to an increase in infections, especially in states where preventive measures like the wearing of masks were less widely adopted. Infections may have also increased because fans watched games with their friends in living rooms or at bars, gatherings that were beyond the N.F.L.’s control.“The strength of these studies is they are showing something, but the correlations can only point out the possibilities, not the causation,” said Bruce Y. Lee, the executive director of Public Health Informatics Computational and Operations Research at City University of New York School of Public Health. “It’s not just a football game and people go home. There are all these associated activities around the game.”To establish that N.F.L. games caused the spread of the virus, researchers would need contact tracing data on fans who attended games and then tested positive. That information is scarce, though, since many local health departments used their resources to educate the public on preventive measures and increase coronavirus testing. In Duval County, Fla., health officials said they did not study whether fans who attended Jacksonville Jaguars games were infected or whether the team’s home games increased the spread of the virus.In part because not everyone cooperated with contact tracers’ requests, even people who attended N.F.L. games and tested positive had difficulty determining whether they got infected before, during or after the games.Eight residents who tested positive for the virus told contact tracers that they had recently attended Cowboys home games, health officials in Tarrant County, Texas, said in November.Researchers in the study submitted to The Lancet found spikes in the number of positive cases after games that had more than 5,000 in attendance, a reason, they argue, that leagues and event organizers should welcome back customers cautiously.“We are not saying that the N.F.L. shouldn’t have opened up to fans,” said Alex Piquero, a sociologist the University of Miami and a co-author of the study. “But we have to understand the public health implications of opening up.” More