The hidden industry powering the 2026 World Cup comes with a cost | OneFootball

The environmental debate around the 2026 World Cup has largely unfolded in familiar territory. Air travel. Stadium energy use. Team logistics. The carbon cost of moving millions of people across a continent-sized tournament.

And yet, for all the scrutiny directed at the flights carrying supporters from London to Los Angeles or Buenos Aires to Vancouver, another emissions story has remained largely invisible. It exists not in the skies above North America but in the servers, data centres and digital infrastructure powering the modern football economy around the tournament.

The 2026 World Cup is the biggest football tournament ever staged. It is also likely to rank among the most digitally consumed sporting events in history. Matches are streamed across multiple platforms and devices. Fans follow live statistics in real time. Betting markets update with every pass and tackle. Broadcasters distribute increasingly sophisticated data products. AI-powered tools generate highlights, analysis and personalised content at a scale unimaginable even a decade ago.

All of that activity requires energy.

A recent report from sports consultancy 5 Tool Sports Group, highlighted by sustainability specialist Aileen McManamon, argues that the digital footprint of modern sport is becoming a significant environmental issue in its own right.

According to the consultancy’s estimates, the digital ecosystems surrounding North America’s five major professional sports leagues consume between 11 and 25 terawatt-hours of electricity annually and generate between 4.5 million and 14 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

The figures should be treated with caution. They are industry estimates rather than peer-reviewed academic findings. But they raise an important question. As sport becomes increasingly digital, are we paying enough attention to the environmental consequences of that transformation?

For months, environmental criticism of the World Cup has focused on travel emissions. Researchers from the Universities of Manchester, Bristol and Loughborough warned before the competition that the expanded 48-team format and the vast distances between host cities risked creating the most carbon-intensive World Cup in history.

Estimates published ahead of the tournament suggested total emissions could reach approximately 7.8 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, with travel accounting for the overwhelming majority of that figure.

The logic is difficult to dispute. A tournament spread across three countries inevitably generates enormous transport demands. Supporters, teams, sponsors, broadcasters and FIFA officials have travelled millions of miles throughout the competition.

But while focusing on travel is important, it’s one piece of a larger story. A supporter in Manchester can watch a match on television while simultaneously tracking expected-goals data on a second screen, scrolling social media, receiving notifications from official apps and placing live bets through mobile platforms. Millions of similar interactions take place every day during the tournament.

None of this means digital activity rivals aviation as the principal environmental challenge facing the World Cup. There is little evidence to suggest that streaming, betting and data services account for anything close to the emissions generated by international travel. But digital consumption is not environmentally neutral simply because it is less visible.

Every stream passes through networks and servers. Every betting market depends upon real-time data processing. Every statistics feed licensed to broadcasters and bookmakers requires infrastructure capable of delivering information instantly to audiences across the globe. Those systems are often located hundreds or thousands of miles away from the supporters using them, hidden within data centres that consume substantial amounts of electricity.

That complexity has become even more relevant with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. The World Cup has arrived during a period in which AI tools are becoming embedded across football’s media ecosystem. Broadcasters use AI-assisted production tools. Rights holders deploy AI to personalise content and recommendations. Sponsors increasingly use AI-generated marketing material. Fans have unprecedented access to AI-powered analysis and information services.

Experts agree that such advanced computing systems consume significant amounts of energy, but the specific impact of AI-related activity within major sporting events is yet to be reckoned with in football’s sustainability accounting.

The game has become remarkably sophisticated at measuring almost everything else. Clubs track player performance down to individual movements. Recruitment departments analyse millions of data points. Broadcasters monitor audience behaviour in real time. Yet the environmental consequences of the digital systems underpinning those activities remain comparatively under-examined.

The environmental impact of the 2026 World Cup will ultimately be measured in air miles, hotel stays and transport networks. That is where most of the emissions lie. But football’s relationship with carbon does not end when supporters arrive at the stadium or switch on the television.

As the sport becomes ever more dependent on streaming platforms, betting operators, data companies and AI tools, the footprint of the game is increasingly being generated in places fans never see.