![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2211520769-e1783416685854.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Good morning.<\/strong> So far, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is a win: record-breaking TV audiences, sellout crowds, exuberant tourists, and solid performances from the three host countries despite them all losing in the round of 16. The games are a boon for the players, too, with FIFA set to distribute a record $871 million to the 48 competing teams. The question is what it will do for the economy of the host cities, for sponsors, and for a sport that\u2019s surpassed baseball in popularity in the U.S. but remains far behind basketball and football.\u00a0<\/p>\n Global events, however fleeting, can create a turning point for a destination, sport or product. The 1988 Seoul Olympics famously showcased Korea as a fast-growing Asian Tiger economy while development for the Barcelona Games four years later is credited with transforming the Spanish city from an industrial port to a tourism hub. As the world\u2019s most popular broadcast sport, with some 3.5 billion fans, World Cup soccer could be a similar opportunity. The question is how to capitalize on it.<\/p>\n One leader who\u2019s trying to use this moment to transform the sport is Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, the CEO and founder of Next 3, which invests in a range of sports properties. Among them: Gotham FC, a professional women\u2019s soccer team based in New Jersey and New York that\u2019s currently the reigning champion of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League. \u201cThe World Cup has been a massive success in getting the country to care about soccer,\u201d she told me during last week\u2019s Aspen Ideas Festival. \u201cWhat we don\u2019t know is how much that will translate into fandom for local teams.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a challenge. The 2026 World Cup is a tournament of men\u2019s teams, with the FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup taking place next year in Brazil. While the U.S. Women\u2019s National Team is better known than their male counterparts, with a dramatically better track record, they\u2019ve suffered from a lack of support. I remember talking to soccer star Megan Rapinoe about the fight for equal pay at a time when U.S. women\u2019s soccer games were bringing in more revenue than men\u2019s. Tisch Blodgett is in talks to move the team to a new stadium in New York City and is building a dedicated practice facility as \u201cwe were basically third-fiddle to 15-year-old boys\u201d at a Red Bull facility in New Jersey.<\/p>\n To capitalize on this moment of soccer fandom, Gotham FC is playing an exhibition game against the Washington Spirit team at New York\u2019s Citi Field on July 15. More than 29,000 tickets have sold, 70% of which went to first-time buyers, breaking a New York City attendance record for women\u2019s sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n She has also overhauled the team\u2019s staff, picking professionals over fans, saying \u201cpeople over-index on passion \u2026 I want the people who are best at what they do.\u201d She\u2019s also deploying AI and approaching sponsors with a more sophisticated digital and community-focused strategy that captures local enthusiasm for the sport. \u201cI think this is like the modern iteration of Moneyball, only for management,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cI feel like I\u2019m in inning zero of using AI inside sports.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal is to define women\u2019s sports,\u201d she said. \u201cWe should be the team that when people around the world say, \u2018This is my favorite team,\u2019 they talk about Gotham.\u201d The World Cup is just the opening whistle.<\/p>\n Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com<\/em><\/p>\n Xbox job cuts<\/b><\/p>\n Xbox CEO Asha Sharma <\/span>announced<\/span> that the Microsoft gaming unit is cutting 20% of staff and spinning off four studios after a 33% drop in hardware revenue last quarter. \u201cIn order to grow, we made a bunch of bets \u2026 and as we did that, we inherently didn\u2019t focus on the core business,\u201d Sharma told <\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The AI productivity mirage<\/b><\/p>\n Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok says AI has <\/span>lifted<\/span> profit margins at the Magnificent Seven but done nothing for the rest of the S&P 500. If companies start cutting AI spending after failing to see returns, he warns, a “painful repricing” across markets becomes very possible.<\/span><\/p>\n The yen\u2019s quiet crash<\/b><\/p>\n The yen has <\/span>fallen<\/span> nearly 11% over the past year to around 162 per dollar, near 40-year lows, as the Bank of Japan holds down bond yields to keep the cost of servicing a debt pile worth 240% of GDP from spiraling out of control. Brookings senior fellow Robin Brooks wrote last week that Tokyo’s interventions can’t fix that underlying problem, and predicts the yen will fall further to 170 per dollar.<\/span><\/p>\n S&P 500<\/b> futures are down 0.16% this morning. The last session closed up 0.72%. <\/span>The<\/b> STOXX Europe 600<\/b> was flat in early trading. <\/span>The U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100<\/b> was up 0.45% in early trading.<\/span> Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 <\/b>was down 2.12%.<\/span> South Korea\u2019s KOSPI <\/b>was<\/span> down 4.91% today. <\/span>China\u2019s CSI 300 <\/b>was down 1.03%.<\/span> Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng<\/b> was down 0.51%.<\/span> India\u2019s NIFTY 50 <\/b>was up 0.14%. <\/span>Bitcoin<\/b> was at $63K.<\/span><\/p>\n Trump rings opening bell for Trump Accounts as Treasury commits $1.4 billion in seed money by Catherina Gioino<\/span><\/p>\n Commentary: I argued with the father of open source for 2 years. Now the AI fight is the same \u2014 only bigger<\/span> by David Siegel<\/span><\/p>\n Ex-PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi worked from midnight until 5 a.m. as a receptionist to pay for her Yale degree\u2014and she says \u2018respect went up\u2019 because of it<\/span> by Preston Fore<\/span><\/p>\n Billionaire Mark Cuban says it\u2019s \u2018embarrassing\u2019 to not pay employees well\u2014and a $20 minimum wage should be standard<\/span> by Emma Burleigh<\/span><\/p>\n Strategy sheds $216 million in Bitcoin in crypto hoarder\u2019s largest sale ever<\/span> by\u00a0<\/span>Camila Grigera Na\u00f3n<\/span><\/p>\n CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #World #Cup #fever #real #CEO #betting #fleeting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good morning. So far, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is a win: record-breaking TV audiences, sellout crowds, exuberant tourists, and solid performances from the three host countries despite them all… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1880,369,1411,3826,12658,12659,62,51],"class_list":["post-10985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-betting","tag-ceo","tag-ceo-daily","tag-cup","tag-fever","tag-fleeting","tag-real","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\nTop leadership news<\/h3>\n
The markets<\/h3>\n
Around the watercooler<\/h3>\n