February 2026 is almost here, and if you listen carefully enough you will hear it – parents of ten million children suddenly realize their child wants to become the next Alphonso Davies or Christian Pulisic. The World Cup (which takes place in North America during this summer) isn’t merely a buzzword associated with marketing but is truly about real-world changes at your front gate.

Using conservative estimates, we are estimating a 30% increase in soccer player participation due to the World Cup effect. This will require purchasing many new pairs of cleats, answering various “Where is the bathroom?” inquiries, and exerting significant strain on your facility’s resources. If you are planning on “winging it” with some extra clipboards and a positive attitude, you should prepare to go through a long, loud summer!

Let’s have an honest conversation regarding soccer complex management and how to turn the short-term craze caused by the World Cup into long-term growth of your sports complex by 2026. It is your responsibility not only to survive the influx of hundreds of thousands of soccer players but also to be a destination for each and every one of them once the World Cup champions are crowned!

1. Living on the Edge: Can Your Lawn Survive the Great Invasion of 2026?

With 30% more players on your field, you can expect a 30% increase in foot traffic. For natural grass fields, this means that by the end of July, your pitch will be perfectly maintained; however, you could also find yourself with a dust cloud left behind from the parking lot.

Maintenance is a Tough Game to Win

By 2026, we need to look at how we are maintaining turf grass differently. The real old-school way of checking grass for health (walking out with your coffee and sticking your toe in it) does not work in scale anymore; so, in its place, we need to start looking toward predictive operations.

• IoT Sensors Used To Help: Many businesses that have recently constructed a new facility are utilizing soil moisture and salinity sensors to determine when their fields need water prior to them showing signs of drought stress (turning yellow).

• Going Hybrid: If you are considering long-term growth of your business, 2026 will likely be the year that you transition to hybrid turf fields, which use a combination of only natural and synthetic products. These fields have a similar feel to natural turf but can withstand approximately three times the amount of wear that a standard field can.

• AI Lighting: Don’t allow your electric bill to consume your income. Today, intelligent floodlight systems employ Ai to help modify output according to the available light and number of players on the field. For example, try to only run at 100 percent on one quarter of the field if a small group clinic is done at that quarter.

• Pro Tip: Establish a “Rest Rotation” schedule today. For example, if you have five different fields, you should use one field as ‘offline’, for 48 hours of recovery time, every time you play. To avoid one coach moving practice due to no fields being available by August, it is better to have an offline field by then.

2. Getting Rid of the Chaos Tax: Administrative Workload at Scale

Adding 300 new players to a league with 1,000 regular players does not increase the administrative workload by 30 percent; it is normally three times that amount. The “new” parents have no idea of the rules or have not signed waivers and are unsure whether their child is U8 or U9.

This is where soccer facility management software becomes your primary tool to combat burnout, instead of simply being a “nice to have.”

All-in-One Dashboard Strategy:

In the year 2026, “a single source of truth” is the goal. You need a unified location where:

• Registrations go to rosters,
• Rosters go to schedules, and
• Schedules go to payment.

If someone registers on a Monday, their child should be on their coach’s app on Tuesday; no additional manual entry; no “I sent the check last week” emails. (And, by the way, remember our discussion regarding ACH vs. Credit Card? Now is when you want to default to ACH because of the large increase in money).

3. The Member Experience (or Why They Will Remain After August)

Most of the new fans are “fair-weather fans” as they are currently drawn by the popularity of the World Cup. Your job is to show them that your facility is part of a community rather than just a place to play soccer.

2026 Growth Considerations

Check-in Process: If you have to wait in line to sign a paper waiver for 20 minutes (check out our previous guide about online waivers to enroll in youth sports!), you enter the venue already frustrated. Utilize QR code check-ins at the gate to improve your appearance and move people through faster.

Amenities for Fans: You have 30% more players (and thus 30% more parents) than you did before; does your venue have adequate shade for the number of parents present? Is the Wi-Fi strong enough to support a parent on a Zoom call while their child trains, drills, etc? Soft amenities are why people choose Complex “A” over Complex “B.”

Digital Engagement: Utilize the recruitment video technology as discussed above! If you offer a “Youth Player Highlight of the Month” program; a recreational child will be a member for life once they see a quality video of themselves scoring via your facility’s Instagram page, and then will continue to participate at your facility.

4. Staffing to Manage a Surge of Kids: Secrets in Your Own Backyard

You cannot coach an additional 30 percent of children with three coaches that are already working too hard. Finding quality coaches when the world is focused on a World Cup (and is therefore out looking for coaches) is as easy as finding a place to sit quietly in Times Square – literally.

The Solution – Be Creative: Don’t just search for “Soccer Coaches”; rather, search for “Youth Coaches/Facilitators”.

You can now use today’s technology (AI) to employ energetic college students or young teachers to manage the logistics of running a session while the Master Coach successfully oversees all four fields at once.

Step 1 – Create “Station-based Training”.

Step 2 – Use management software to push the “Drill of the Day” video to all facilitators’ tablets.

Step 3 – Scale your impact without sacrificing the effectiveness of the coaching.

5. Converting your “Spike” into a “Legacy”

One of the biggest mistakes that sports complexes made following the 1994 World Cup was believing that growth would happen on its own. But it didn’t! In order for your sports complex to see continued growth until at least 2030 and beyond, you’ll need to put together a legacy plan utilizing data.

Using Waresport to Play the Long Game

Waresport will act as the “brain” of your facility.

• Retaining Members: The dashboard within Waresport will let you know exactly who didn’t sign up for fall following their summer participation. You can use this “churn data” to send them a personalized “We miss you” email with a small discount.

• Facility Utilization Reports: Facility Utilization Reports will help show which of your facilities are truly making you money. If “Court 3” is consistently empty, why not change it to be a “3v3 World Cup Style” Drop-In League on Tuesdays?

• Revenue Transparency: As money comes into your facility, Waresport will provide you with transparent invoicing so that you can analyze how well your margins are performing. Are you using Stripe which has processing fees that are too high? Move those parent’s payments to ACH, which will create more funds to purchase a new set of goal posts.