[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - All right folks, everything you wanted and needed to know about the World Cup coming to New Jersey, you'll find out right now with Jim Kirkos, who is President and CEO, Meadowlands Regional Chamber.

Good to see you Jim.

- Good to be here, thanks for always having me.

- You got it, lemme also disclose that Jim is a trustee of the Caucus Educational Corporation, our not-for-profit production company.

Hey, Jim, the World Cup, coming to New Jersey, when exactly?

- It's a big deal, June into July of 2026, and it's around the corner.

- Hold on, this is six weeks of games?

- Yeah, pretty much, the opening game, the opening preliminary round games start the middle of June and the final will be right here at MetLife Stadium on July 19th.

- How big a deal from an economic point of view is this for the region and the state versus New York City who's gonna try to claim a lot of credit for this as they have a habit of doing?

I'm just saying Jim.

- Yeah, no, listen, I don't know that I can really articulate how big it is, eight games that we'll have right here in the Greater Meadowlands and here in New Jersey, it's an enormous amount of economic impact.

I wish I could give you a number.

I think from all the things that we've learned, Steve, over the past big events that have been at MetLife, WrestleManias and past World Cups and- - Super Bowl.

- Super Bowl, the fact of the matter is I think we have learned the formula on what it's gonna take to make sure we're capturing the eyeballs of the world and making sure that visitors that come in here for those five or six weeks, in some cases longer, to be part of World Cup 2026, that they find all the great experiences where to stay, where to play, where to eat, where to shop, where to have fun.

All of those things is in our purview this time.

- I asked you about logistics, you and I talk about leadership and logistics all the time.

Do you remember the year the Super Bowl was at the Meadowlands?

- '14.

- 2014.

I don't know, I heard a rumor that it was a bit challenging with New Jersey Transit moving people around, not a rumor, a fact.

How the heck are we gonna move all those people to where they need to go, when they need to go there in a reasonable way?

- So I'm gonna tell you that New Jersey Transit gets a bad rap for that because it was really not their fault.

There was a lot of people doing the planning for transportation and mobility for Super Bowl, many of which had nothing to do with people like me and maybe even some on New Jersey Transit.

The train station at MetLife Stadium was designed to move 10 to 12,000 people an hour, and there was 35,000 people that tried to take the train after that game.

And it took three hours, exactly what it was designed to do.

The problem was they also had a bus system that was created by some vendor that worked for the NFL and they expected a larger number of people to take the bus then took the train and it didn't work out that way.

- So what have we learned for the World Cup?

- What we've learned this time is we need multiple modes of transportation to and from train hubs and transit hubs.

New Jersey Transit not only is better at moving people on the train line that exists now, but they're developing a product called Transitway, which will be a bus rapid transit system that runs from Secaucus Transit right into the sports complex that will augment the train line.

So a combination of the commuter train that moves from Secaucus Transfer, this bus rapid transit and some other mobility issues with shuttles and buses and private buses and so forth.

And we'll do a better job.

And there's no better example than this past summer, Steve, when MetLife Stadium hosted the biggest concert summer series in its history of the stadium.

And not one glitch, Steve, not one glitch in moving people, back to back concerts, 80 plus thousand people.

Ed Sheeran was I think one of the highest attended for concerts in North America.

And I happened to be at that particular concert, it was spectacular.

And listen, there's always gonna be some delay getting outta the stadiums when you're trying to- - Let's also include traffic onto the turnpike, onto Route 3, that's part of the deal here.

- Oh, certainly, and all of those mobility things.

And they have been fixing ramps to and from the turnpike over the years since Super Bowl and things like that.

And there's no one fix for this transportation, it's lots of little fixes, and we've been working on lots of little fixes since then.

- Talk marketing, and go back to what I said before, when we watch it, when we watch the World Cup, those of us who can't get tickets, you watch it, is it gonna say, is it gonna be clear that it's coming from New Jersey, from the Meadowlands, or is it gonna be New York?

- No, actually, the stadium will be renamed the New York New Jersey Stadium.

Every venue in the country that has a naming rights deal will be so little words.

So like LA will be LA Stadium, Dallas will be Dallas Stadium.

That's the way FIFA designed the- - FIFA, the folks who regulate soccer?

- Correct, this is the FIFA World Cup and FIFA's the organizing body for professional soccer internationally.

And so it'll be a combination of both.

But you brought up a great word, marketing, right?

So what I've learned now, I'm 20 years here at the Chamber and I've witnessed, I was here as a member back at the '94 World Cup.

Having taken all this experience, I can tell you this, if we sit back and just wait for people to come to our doors in New Jersey and expect that just because all these games are taking place, we're gonna be disappointed.

And so we need to put some financial resources into marketing.

That's the state, that's organizations like ours, we need to let people know where all these experiences are so that they can see.

And we are a better destination today than we were back at Super Bowl.

American Dream wasn't even open during Super Bowl.

- Jim Kirkos is bullish on New Jersey, bullish on the Meadowlands, that's why he is the President and CEO of the Meadowlands Regional Chamber.

Hey, Jim, 2026, looking forward to the World Cup.

Thank you, buddy, appreciate it.

- Thank you, thanks for having me.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato, that's Jim Kirkos, he's bullish on the World Cup in Jersey.

See you next time.

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