How Hosting The FIFA World Cup Will Benefit Miami’s Real Estate Market (Podcast) – Real Estate
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is coming to Miami, and the implications
will reach far beyond the stadium. Partner Isabel
Diaz and Associate Alexa Duarte sit down
with Alina Hudak, president and CEO of the FIFA
World Cup 2026 Miami Host Committee to explore what it takes to
deliver seven matches and more than 30 days of citywide activation.
Ms. Hudak breaks down the projected billion-dollar economic impact,
describes the process of building the foundation to highlight the
city during this monumental event and explains how global exposure
can translate into real estate demand, investment and long-term
growth across South Florida.
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Podcast Transcript
Isabel Diaz: Hi everyone. My name is Isabel
Diaz, and I’m an attorney here at Holland & Knight, an
international law firm that services companies and different groups
throughout the world. I’m very excited to be here. I’m
specifically part of the real estate group here in the Miami
office. I’m joined by my colleague Alexa Duarte, who’s also
part of the real estate department here in Miami. And we’re
very, very excited to have such an influential and powerful woman
who’s left already a legacy in Miami-Dade County and in Miami
generally and in the state of Florida already in what she’s
done. We have here with us Alina Hudak, who is currently the
president and CEO of [the] FIFA World Cup ’26 Miami Host
Committee. One of the things that I found very interesting when I
read about you is I didn’t know that you were the first woman
city manager for the city of Miami Beach, and also first woman
county manager for Miami-Dade County. And I was really impressed
with that. So I’m going to turn it over to you so you can tell
us a little bit about yourself. And then, obviously, we’re here
to talk about the FIFA World Cup ’26 Miami Host Committee. So
tell us about yourself and how you became involved in that next
chapter in your life.
Alina Hudak: Well, thank you, Isabel. I hope I
can match your energy, I love it. I have a 40-year history of
public service in Miami-Dade County that I’m very proud of. I
am a Miamian, I came to this country when I was 6 years old and the
dream was always to be in Miami. And I’ve been here since I was
10 and went to University of Miami, so my entire life has been
devoted in one way or another not only to serving our community,
but to being a part of it. So I’m thrilled and honored to be
here today participating with you, but also to be in this capacity
to share in this legacy moment for our community. You know, the
Miami Host Committee and what we’re charged with doing is this
really important moment to really bring Miami to the international
sports global market in a way that we’ve already done with
things like Art Basel, for example. Miami Beach is certainly front
and center in December in the international culture and art world.
So I think being able to host a World Cup here and seven matches
during June-July 2026 is really going to take us to another level
in the sports world. We have a long history of hosting national
championships, Super Bowls. I personally have been a part of six
Super Bowl host committees, which I’m, again, really proud of.
But I think this is a really legacy moment for South Florida and
for Miami, and I’m thrilled to be a small part of it.
Isabel Diaz: I’m going to turn it over to
Alexa for our next question.
Alexa Duarte: Hi Alina, so good to meet with
you and to speak with you today about this. So the World Cup is a
massive event, it’s expected to bring hundreds of thousands of
people to Miami, not only for the seven matches, but for the fan
fest that you have going on. How will the local communities and
real estate developers benefit from such a massive event here in
Miami?
Alina Hudak: Well, first and foremost, the
entire economy in South Florida is going to benefit. We have
projections that predict that there’s going to be an over $1
billion economic impact. The impact is significant, not just
because of the time of year that it is. It’s June-July, which
is a time that traditionally our tourism revenues are down, our
hotels are empty, our restaurants are suffering. So to have 30 to
39 days of activation where hundreds of thousands of tourists and
visitors are going to be here for seven matches is really
significant. And what I tell people in business is it’s not
only the hospitality industry that’s going to benefit.
Obviously, in real estate, for example, I mean, obviously your
markets are only as vibrant as the people who want to live and buy
and purchase real estate. So I think we’re an extraordinarily
popular destination, and we certainly know that post-COVID, a lot
of people have come to South Florida and chosen to stay here and
make South Florida home. But again, this is another opportunity to
introduce the real estate market and the beauty that is Miami to
yet another demographic and another market. And international
market, not just a Central American or South American market
— we’re certainly the gateway to the Americas — but
a European market. So it’s an incredible opportunity for all of
us, not only to showcase South Florida and what the opportunities
are here, but to showcase the state of Florida as well.
Isabel Diaz: Thank you, and leading to that, I
know you said I have a lot of energy, and yes, that is, and I’m
feeling it from you, and I love that. What excites you? So, just to
give you a little bit of background, I had the opportunity of
working on the Miami Freedom Park lease agreement, and Alexa helped
me, and I remember being at the commission meeting when the project
got approved, and going outside, and seeing the large crowd and all
the media, and to me, being at that commission meeting and going
outside and seeing the crowd was so exciting for me. So what
excites you about bringing this big event and bringing sports
generally to the South Florida community and maybe like on a
personal level, right? What was your why to saying yes to taking on
this role?
Alina Hudak: Yeah, that’s a great question
because it was a decision point. I had retired twice from two very
high-profile positions, and quite frankly, I had a vision of myself
going into academia and really shifting courses, and when this
opportunity presented itself, it took me all of about an hour to
decide to take it because again, it is such an incredible moment
for Miami. And if you’re a person like me, this is my home,
this is where my children were born, this is where I hope that my
daughters will build their lives [here]. And so for me, it was just
such an opportunity to use what I’ve learned in government and
my ability to navigate the requirements of the operational needs of
what it takes to put something like this on and to leverage that
and maximize that, but to really be able to do it right and to lead
a team that is made of professionals and people that know about
public safety, that know what it takes to put on large events,
event production people. And so it was very exciting. Quite
frankly, I didn’t know much about soccer at the time. And I
certainly had no knowledge of the impact of a World Cup. In the
year that I’ve been involved, it’s amazing to me the
importance of soccer as a sport worldwide, the amount of
viewership, the amount of social media following that soccer has
— most people don’t realize that the three athletes that
have the highest level of following and engagement in social media
are three soccer players, professional soccer players. So for me,
it’s been an incredible education, but also a really wonderful
opportunity to be part of something that is important from a legacy
perspective and from an economic perspective, for sure.
Alexa Duarte: Being former city manager of
Miami Beach, you’re no stranger to hosting massive events. You
mentioned you were also on Super Bowl committees before. How do you
think this particular event will be different in terms of the
impact that it’ll have on the community and what legacy
it’ll leave behind, specifically on the real estate market?
Alina Hudak: I can tell you from a planning
perspective already, there’s no doubt in my mind that this is
the most significant global sporting event that has ever come to
Miami and to the state of Florida. There’s nothing like it.
There’s nothing that compares to it. I mean, this is really the
world stage. Seven matches, again, I can’t emphasize enough,
over 30 days of activation. So from that perspective, there is no
comparison. And, you know, again, as a city manager of a global
destination — and Miami Beach certainly is that, it’s a
very small city from a governance perspective, because in terms of
number of employees and operations, it’s actually considered as
a small city, but from its significance, I can tell you there’s
nowhere in the world that I would go and say, “I’m the
city manager of the city of Miami Beach,” and people
didn’t know where I came from. And I think that World Cup
soccer is the exact same thing. There’s nowhere in the world
that you can go and say, “I am part of the North American
World Cup in 2026,” and people don’t know what you’re
doing and the importance and the significance of it. So I think
it’s very important. Again, I’ll reiterate to our real
estate market, I think the economic impact of the amount of
visitors, the ability to really offer opportunity to people who
come to visit here, to stay here permanently and to invest here
locally, not only in property but obviously in our economy in some
other way. It makes the economy vibrant, which makes people have
affordability and offer people the opportunity to invest in real
estate.
Isabel Diaz: Well, with that, we wanted to say
thank you. We also wanted to say FIFA is very lucky you were chosen
this enormous, but well within your powerhouse to get this going,
and hopefully maybe we can go to some matches.
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