Want to see World Cup and a football finale? How Miami is luring tourists through sports

Thousands of fans came in early January, gladly trading snow and ice storms in South Bend, Indiana, and State College, Pennsylvania, for South Florida temperatures. American Airlines helped, offering them extra nonstop flights to Miami International Airport.

But football isn’t the only game in town these days.

In April, tourists will arrive from Qatar and other Arab gulf countries, fleeing temperatures in the 90s for a more moderate climate.

They’ll attend a new international equestrian beauty competition for Arabian horses April 18-20 in Miami Beach, one of three U.S. cities to host the Americas debut of the 2025 Global Champions Arabians Tour.

Then in June, as hurricane season starts and snowbirds continue to flee the heat, visitors from all over the globe will descend on South Florida to watch up to eight matches at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens in the FIFA Club World Cup. Inter Miami is a host of the championship tournament featuring 32 soccer clubs. European powers Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are among the teams playing, along with Argentina’s Boca Juniors and Brazil’s Flamengo.

For those who can’t wait until April to cheer for something, the Pegasus World Cup, an important thoroughbred race, takes place Jan. 25 at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach.

Football has long been king in South Florida. Miami has hosted 11 Super Bowls, more than any other city. The last one, Super Bowl 54 in 2020, generated over $500 million for the local economy. In February, New Orleans will tie Miami as the city to host the most Super Bowls.

But tourists are also coming to the region to watch polo, hockey, even cricket.

Sporting events — spectator and participatory — are booming in South Florida. And it’s benefiting the broader tourism industry in big ways.

Sports tourism in South Florida “is becoming a bigger deal than it’s ever been,” said Peter Ricci, associate professor of hospitality management systems at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. That’s in part “because people make staycations and vacations and visiting families and friends — they make a whole trip out of it.”

In Broward County, sports tourism in 2023 produced an overall economic impact of $423 million, according to Visit Lauderdale, the county’s official tourism marketing agency.

The 2024 figures are not yet totaled, but just the four Stanley Cup Finals games last year in Sunrise between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers brought in an extra $26 million, according to Visit Lauderdale. That’s a sign that even South Florida teams can draw tourists. During that Finals, Panthers fans sometimes complained they couldn’t find tickets because so many people flew in from Edmonton. And the Miami Heat has its fans from elsewhere, too.

What’s coming next year?

If 2025 or the past 12 months doesn’t convince you that South Florida is becoming a sports hub, wait until 2026.

▪ Orange Bowl: On Jan. 1, Hard Rock Stadium will host the Orange Bowl, a college football quarterfinal match-up and part of the college football playoff

▪ Outdoor NHL game: On Jan. 2, loanDepot park, home stadium of the Miami Marlins, will host the Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Panthers and the New York Rangers.

▪ College football championship: On Jan. 19, Hard Rock Stadium will hold the college football national championship.

▪ World baseball: In March 2026, World Baseball Classic games from all three rounds including the championship will take place at loanDepot park in a repeat of three years ago.

▪ World Cup soccer: In June and July 2026, the men’s FIFA World Cup will be played in North America, and Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens will host several matches including a quarterfinal.

“There are more and more tournaments and activities for all kinds of sports,” in the region, said Ricci, the academic who closely follows tourism. And he doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.

“It’s not going back,” he said.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, mixed martial arts known as UFC, is making Miami a regular stop, for example. Before last year’s fights in March at Kaseya Center, Lawrence Epstein, UFC’s chief operating officer, told the Miami Herald that “we are planning to continue an annual major event here.”

There are challenges to hosting big sporting events. Several fans who flew in from outside Florida with valid tickets for the finals of Copa America soccer were turned away from the stadium’s entrance. The breakdown in security last year raised questions about Hard Rock Stadium’s readiness for more FIFA matches.

Still, South Florida has offerings galore likely to draw tourists from Senegal to Saudi Arabia, and even before next year.

Coming up this year

On Jan. 25, 2025, the Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach expects to draw more than 10,000 spectators. The JW Marriott Turnberry and AC Marriott Aventura will host many of the visitors who are coming from Hong Kong, Japan, Ireland and elsewhere. While it debuted in 2017, it continues to grow, and has attracted its share of celebrities. Jennifer Lopez, Lenny Kravitz, Vin Diesel and Venus Williams have attended past races.

And it’s not only spectator sports that attract visitors. The Life Time Miami Marathon & Half takes place on Feb. 2 this year. Last year’s race had an economic impact for Miami-Dade County of $16.1 million. About one-quarter of that was on lodging as visitors booked 13,322 hotel room nights, according to a report by the Greater Miami Convention Center & Visitors Bureau. Just over half of participants lived outside Florida.

Then, on April 18-20, about 5,000 visitors will attend the Global Champions Arabians Tour, or GCAT, said Sheikh Mohammed bin Nasser Al Thani, deputy CEO of GCAT, in an interview with the Miami Herald. The venue is tentatively outside the yet to open Aman Hotel on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, although he said final permits still need to be obtained.

Among U.S. locations considered, “Miami was the first choice,” Nasser Al Thani said. That’s because “we wanted elegant, big cities” and at the same time, “you can get a lot of people to travel to Miami.”

The executive expects visitors to include members of the royal families of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. He also expects many spectators from Brazil and Argentina.

Those countries will also send visitors in the fall for the World Polo League’s 2025 Beach Polo World Cup, which will return to Miami Beach. It debuted in 2024 with eight international teams and over 120 ponies. The event drew over 12,000, and many of the out-of-towners stayed at the Setai Miami Beach and the W South Beach, according to Melissa Ganzi, co-owner of Grand Champions Polo club and also co-founder of World League Polo. Delta Airlines and LATAM flew in guests.

Arab Gulf countries and South America expect to send lots of visitors for the FIFA soccer tournaments this year and next.

On the football field

But what about American football?

South Florida has not hosted a Super Bowl since 2020. And it has not been awarded one through 2028. To make matters worse, California, a state the region loves to compare itself to, hosts two of the next four Super Bowls — at Levi’s Stadium in the Bay Area and SoFi Stadium in Southern California.

The drought in hosting Super Bowls is partly due to the NFL changing how it awards them and a flurry of new stadiums, said Rodney Barreto, the Coral Gables-based chairman of the Super Bowl Host Committee in Miami in 2007, 2010 and 2020.

“The NFL typically rewards any city that opens a new stadium,” Barreto said in an interview with the Miami Herald.

He said while it’s up to the league, he expects South Florida to be considered for the 2029 Super Bowl.

In college football though, times are good.

The Orange Bowl remains significant. The game has a rich tradition, with roots stretching back to 1935. And the Jan. 9 playoff game between Notre Dame and Penn State may have been one of the most significant.

“It received the type of attention you usually see for a national championship game,” said Eric Poms, chief executive of The Orange Bowl Committee.

While it’s early to know the economic impact of January’s game, the last Orange Bowl that was part of the national championship playoff — on Dec. 31, 2021, the University of Georgia beat Michigan 34-11 — brought in $267.3 million, according to a study by Rockport Analytics commissioned by the Orange Bowl Committee. That stems from 53,844 visitors from outside Florida and 85,633 hotel room nights. Just the media coverage had a value of $104 million in “media exposure value for South Florida,” according to the report.

This year’s Orange Bowl should have an even larger economic impact, in part due to the large fan bases of each team.

“We anticipate it’ll be higher than the last,” Poms said in an interview with the Miami Herald.

“To see a beautiful night at Hard Rock in South Florida is a tremendous infomercial for the region,” the executive said. “ESPN put all their assets toward the playoffs.”

Meanwhile, the InterContintental Hotel in downtown Miami hosted the Penn State team and the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood had Notre Dame. The Loews Miami Beach and Le Meridien also played important roles, Poms said.

Glenn Sampert, the general manager of the InterContinental, said when the Orange Bowl is a college football playoff game, the hotel usually sells at least 1,000 hotel room nights. American Airlines added 12 flights in the days leading up to the Orange Bowl, from Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and South Bend to MIA and back.

Hosting football also has had other impacts such as serving as a catalyst to bring in other big events.

After building a state-of-the-art football stadium in Miami Gardens for about $550 million, organizers put in another $60 million to bring the Miami Open tennis tournament there, said Myles Pistorius, senior vice president and general counsel for the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium.

“Without the Miami Open, we would not have had Formula 1,” the executive said at an event on Jan. 15 organized by the Miami-Dade Beacon Council. “Because they saw what we could do and how we could transform the stadium.”

Formula 1 racing last year at Hard Rock Stadium generated 218,708 hotel room nights — the number of guests multiplied by the number of nights each one stays at a hotel — in Miami-Dade County for $71 million in sales, according to a report by the Greater Miami Convention Center & Visitors Bureau. The event led to about 164,000 hotel nights booked in Greater Fort Lauderdale for sales of $28 million, according to data from Visit Lauderdale. Hotel revenue per available room that weekend was 164% of the average for 2024.

And hosting Formula 1 was a big factor in the Global Champions Arabians Tour decision to pick the Miami area, Sheikh Nasser Al Thani said.

A global attraction but new to U.S. and Florida

How global can South Florida go? In the past 12 months, it had a sort of a test match.

In June 2024, the United States hosted the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Men’s T20 World Cup for the first time, and Central Broward Park & Stadium was one of three venues in the country awarded matches. It also happens to be the first stadium in the U.S. approved by the ICC to host international matches.

The Lauderhill stadium hosted four matches: Sri Lanka vs. Nepal, United States vs. Ireland, India vs. Canada and Pakistan vs. Ireland. About 15,845 spectators attended in total. The majority came from outside the tri-county area and they spent a total of $3.3 million while in town, according to Visit Lauderdale.

“Cricket was a boon,” to the county’s economy, said Stacy Ritter, President and CEO of the Broward tourism marketing agency.

Locals got into the spirit. A 400-pound, 8-foot-tall replica of the cricket ball used in the tournament was built and sent to various locations in Fort Lauderdale, including Las Olas Oceanside Park and the Brightline Fort Lauderdale station.

Niranjan Vutukuru, 56, and originally from India, attended the India vs. Canada match with two friends who flew in from Chicago. Now living in Tampa and working in IT consulting, Vutukuru was making his first visit to Fort Lauderdale.

The night before they stayed at Home2Suites. Then on match day, to not miss any excitement, they entered the stadium when the doors opened, at about 8:30 a.m. Many food stalls were serving samosas with mint chutney, rotis and biriyani.

“It was pretty elaborate,” said Vutukuru, describing the food options and setup.

Yet, limitations of South Florida’s capabilities were also on display, leaving a bad taste.

The India vs Canada match was canceled due to rain in previous days. Vutukuru said the stadium lacked the drying equipment and proper drainage to dry the field, in particular super-stoppers, a device normally found at big cricket stadiums in India and South Africa.

“Ridiculous,” he said. “The stadium is not equipped.”

Now he says he’ll only return to Fort Lauderdale to attend a cricket match if it is held between November and April, outside of the rainy season.

This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.