Committee on Economic Development

Hello there. Good afternoon. Welcome to today's New York City Council hearing for the Committee on Economic Development and Small Business. At this time, please silence all phones. If you wish to speak in today's hearing, please fill out an appearance card with one of the sergeants. Moving forward, no one is to approach the dais. Chair, you may begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. All right.

Good afternoon, and welcome to this joint hearing of the New York City Council's Committee on Economic Development and the Committee on Small Business. Today is Wednesday, September 30th. My name is Virginia Maloney, and I have the privilege of serving as chair of the Committee on Economic Development. And I am so pleased to be joined by my co-chair, Councilmember Chanel Thomas-Henry, who chairs the Committee on Small Business.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Today we are assessing the economic impact of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This committee held an oversight hearing on the city's preparations in February, a hearing on World Cup legislation in April, and we passed 3 bills on bathroom access, on events calendaring and a small business map, and a cultural passport program. Today is a look back. about what the city's investment actually produced, who benefited, and what the city should do differently the next time an event of this scale comes around.

First, we'd like to discuss the World Cup successes, what worked well, and what should become part of a long-term playbook for the City of New York. We held free fan events in all 5 boroughs. 30,000 people watched the final on the Great Lawn in Central Park. And New Jersey Transit, for the most part, moved more than 300,000 passengers across the 8 matches at MetLife Stadium.

So there is a lot to celebrate. Second, we'd like to understand the return on investment here. The council's finance division has an analysis showing that hosting the World Cup cost the city more than it brought in. There were some projections released earlier today in a press release, and we'd like to understand the true return on investment from these various sources and whether or not this was a net cost to the city.

Put simply, New York City taxpayers might have helped subsidize a tremendous payday for FIFA, and we'll be digging in more onto that with a resolution that my councilmember colleague will present. So we still also don't have a meaningful account of where exactly all of the money went. In February, EDC told us that it had passed $20 million through to the host committee and committed to sharing a breakdown of how that money was spent along with the agreement to the host committee.

So we're hoping to get more specifics on the agreement. We did receive a breakdown of the additional $15 million that the Mondame administration added. Of that $15 million, $9 million was allocated to fan zones. And we want to understand how that was distributed across all 5 boroughs. In August, the host committee reported around $3.5 billion in regional economic impact.

That number covers both New York and New Jersey together. So we're trying to understand the host committee's methodology of what specifically happened in New York. The World Cup fell during peak tourist season, so many World Cup visitors simply may have taken the place of tourists who could have come anyway. So we want to better understand again the methodology.

Chair Thomas Henry and I have introduced Resolution Number 655, which calls on FIFA to pay New Yorkers in New York City the $1 million legacy contribution that was promised for hosting the Cup. I'll leave it to Chanel Thomas Henry, my councilwoman co-chair, to speak to that resolution. And finally, in closing, this Hearing is as much about the next event as it is the last one.

In July 2028, Queens is set to host 9 Olympic soccer matches. The lessons of the World Cup this summer should shape how the city approaches that event and everyone like it. We need commitments from event organizers in writing before committing public money, and we need to account publicly for every dollar that passes through to a third party.

The 2028 Olympics are less than 2 years away, and that planning needs to start now. We want to hear from the administration today about what the city spent, what New Yorkers got for that money, and how the city plans to carry those lessons forward. Before I pass to my colleague, I want to recognize the Economic Development Committee staff for their work in preparing for today's hearing.

Thank you to Senior Counsel Alex Polonoff, Senior Policy Analyst William Hongnash, and financial analyst Spencer Kuhn. I will now turn the floor over to my co-chair.

Thank you, Chair Maloney. Good afternoon, everyone. I am Councilmember Chanel Thomas-Henry, chair of the Committee on Small Business. Thank you for joining us for today's joint hearing. Today, the administration announced that the World Cup generated an estimated $2 billion in economic activity for New York City. That is significant, and it gives us an important starting point for today's conversation.

But in a city as large as New York, headline economic activity alone does not tell us who actually benefited from it. The question before us today is, did New Yorkers feel it? Did the restaurant owner in Corona see new customers come through their doors? Did the small business in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, or Southeast Queens get a piece of that $2 billion?

And after the crowds went home, did those businesses walk away stronger than they were before? Mayor Mamdani said today that the World Cup belonged to the deli owners, cab drivers, and line cooks who welcomed the world to New York. I agree that those New Yorkers helped make this tournament possible. It's clear what New Yorkers did for the World Cup.

Today, we want to understand what the World Cup did for New Yorkers. The World Cup 2026 was the largest of the tournament's existence. More than 1 million people came to the New York-New Jersey region. New York welcomed visitors, supported transportation and public safety, hosted fan events, and helped create the experience that allowed this global event to succeed.

But while this admin celebrates, small businesses across the city are still holding their breath. And that is why a headline number cannot be the end of this conversation. We must look beyond aggregate economic activity and ask where that activity occurred. Which industries benefited? Which neighborhoods saw increased foot traffic, how many local businesses participated, and whether the opportunities were equitably distributed across all 5 boroughs.

Because the goal cannot simply be to hope that economic activity trickles into our neighborhoods. We have to build the infrastructure that intentionally directs opportunities there. That means coordinating earlier with bids, chambers, merchant associations, street vendors, restaurants, and retailers so businesses know what is coming and how they can participate. And it means removing barriers and creating clear pathways for businesses across all 5 boroughs to turn major events into real, lasting economic activity.

That also includes examining the commitments made to our city. Resolution 655, which I sponsor, calls on FIFA to provide New York City with the $1 million legacy contribution associated with hosting the tournament that they promised. Together, we are demanding New York gets what it was promised and better prepares us for what's ahead. That's why I'm proud to hold this joint hearing to determine how the city can build a coordinated playbook for future major events. so that when New York welcomes the world, our small businesses and working people are positioned from day one to benefit from it.

I look forward to hearing from the administration today about the economic impact of the tournament. I want to thank Tyler Walls and Rebecca Barrilla from Central Staff for putting work— for their work putting this hearing together, as well as my staff, Franklin Richards, Sierra Smith, and Elise Francisco and everyone working behind the scenes to make today's hearing possible.

At this time, I want to acknowledge that we are joined by our council colleagues, Councilmember Murano, Councilmembers Brooks Powers, Councilmember Salaam, and Councilmember Santos-Suazo. And Councilmember Banks.

We'll now turn to committee counsel to administer the oath. Thank you, Chairs. Alex Polonoff, committee counsel. Will all members of the administration testifying today please raise your right hands? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in your testimony today and to respond honestly to councilmember questions? Thank you.

You may begin when ready. Can you hear me? Perfect.

Um, good afternoon, Chair Maloney, Chair Thomas-Henry, and members of the committees, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with City Council today. My name is Maya Honda, World Cup czar. Even though basketball is not my purview, I would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the historic performance of the New York Liberty last night. Incredible sweep of the Lynx.

So just want to shout them out for that and then move on to soccer. So this summer, we welcomed more than 1 million people from around the world for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The tournament not only brought historic opportunities for our city, but intricate and complex challenges as well. Mayor Mamdani was clear from the outset: we had to make sure that every New Yorker could be a part of the celebration.

We had to keep our city safe and our streets moving, and we had to make sure that bars, restaurants, and business from across all 5 boroughs benefited from the World Cup. Thanks to the tireless preparation of our city agencies and the dedication of New Yorkers both inside and outside of city government, this tournament was a success on all 3 fronts.

The World Cup added more than $3.5 billion to our regional economy, to our hotels, small businesses, and commercial corridors. Not only is that real money in the pockets of business owners and workers, it's $200 million more than initially projected. Within New York City, the tournament generated approximately $2 billion in economic activity, more than half of the total regional impact and more than two-thirds of all direct visitor spending.

The numbers are clear. Major international events can deliver for New York City's economy. They can deliver for our sports bars, where foot traffic increased by 16% year over year throughout the tournament. They can deliver for our hotels, who saw over $1 billion in additional revenue thanks to the World Cup. And they can deliver for workers, with more than 12,000 jobs supported by visitor and operational spending from the tournament.

This explosion in economic activity was not limited to any single sector. Hospitality, food service, retail, and tourism all benefited from this summer. But I want to be clear, the success of this tournament and the benefits that it brought to New Yorkers were not guaranteed. They were the direct result of the Mamdani administration's efforts to engage businesses of all kinds, drive foot traffic to every borough, and host events for every New Yorker.

To make sure that New Yorkers could be a part of this historic tournament, we hosted more than 100 free watch parties in our parks, plazas and public spaces. We secured 1,000 affordable tickets to World Cup matches for New Yorkers and kept soccer fields in every borough open 24/7 to give people a place to play long after the sun had set.

To keep our city safe and moving, we brought together agencies across multiple levels of city government, expanded ferry service, and launched a Midtown transportation plan with dedicated bus and shuttle corridors. To drive traffic to commercial corridors across the city, We launched a $26 meal deal for our restaurants, a cultural passport program for cultural organizations and small businesses and business districts, and a small business toolkit that reached more than 56,000 New Yorkers.

From breweries on Staten Island to museums in Queens to watch parties in the Bronx, we brought businesses and organizations across the city together to take part in the celebration. But the mayor's mandate was clear. We needed to build a legacy that lasted beyond the final whistle. That's why the city's Economic Development Corporation leveraged the global attention surrounding the event to connect businesses with city leadership, highlight opportunities for investment and expansion, and showcase New York City as a destination for growth and innovation.

During the tournament, NYCEDC hosted its annual Choose NYC Summit, bringing together more than 350 attendees representing 150 businesses from 34 countries. EDC also organized site visits and tours across multiple neighborhoods. And New York City Tourism welcomed guests, encouraged them to explore the breadth of the city, and ultimately created return visitors. Our city launched projects to permanently transform public spaces, like a new bus lane near LaGuardia Airport, a dedicated bike and pedestrian connection near the Brooklyn Bridge, and much more.

Taken together, these outcomes prove that major international sporting events like the World Cup can translate into real economic impacts for New Yorkers, that we can not only welcome visitors from around the world but direct their attention, investment, and spending toward businesses and neighborhoods across the 5 boroughs. But these findings also make it clear that it's not simply enough for cities to open up their doors to these events.

City governments must take an active role in supporting local businesses, attracting investment, driving foot traffic to commercial corridors, and ensuring that major, major events are accessible to working people. These lessons of coordination must be front and center as New York City continues to compete for and host international events. Ultimately, though, we know that when New Yorkers remember the World Cup, they won't remember good economic statistics or the hard data of dollar figures.

They will remember crowding into bars to watch Argentina maneuver 2 breathtaking comebacks. They will remember riding World Cup-branded trains and ferries across the 5 boroughs to collect commemorative cups and stamps. They'll remember laying a blanket down on the Great Lawn of Central Park to watch the finals match, then instantly standing back up again to cheer on their team.

That is what this tournament was ultimately about. As we look ahead to future international events and opportunities, we will continue to build on the lessons learned from the World Cup, using data and experience to strengthen our approach and maximize benefits to New Yorkers. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to answering your questions.

Good afternoon, Council Chair Maloney, Council Chair Thomas Henry, and members of the Economic Development and Small Business Committees. I'm Nancy Mamana. I'm Chief Chief Marketing Officer for New York City Tourism and Conventions. Thank you for the opportunity to share the results of our work surrounding the World Cup and specifically how the city's investment in tourism marketing helped translate this extraordinary global event into economic activity across all 5 boroughs.

New York City Tourism and Conventions is the city's official destination marketing organization and convention and visitors bureau, and our role is to promote New York City to travelers around the world. encourage visitation, and help visitors discover more of the 5 boroughs. Our mission is to maximize inbound travel and tourism opportunities in support of equitable economic prosperity for local businesses throughout the city.

New York City Tourism represents more than 1,600 member businesses and is governed by an 80-member board of directors representing the diversity of New York City's businesses. Tourism supports nearly 400,000 workers across the city, which is roughly 10% of the city's workforce. Nearly 80% of those workers live outside of Manhattan in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

For us, the World Cup was never just about filling the stadium. Our responsibility was to make sure the impact of visitation extended way beyond the stadium and into New York City businesses, neighborhoods, and communities. So as a result of that, we approached the World Cup with 2 clear goals. First, we wanted to leverage the global appeal of the World Cup to drive visitation and spending to businesses across all 5 boroughs.

Secondly, we wanted to create a joyous, welcoming citywide experience that generated lasting exposure for the city. Our $4.5 million investment in tourism for the World Cup allowed us to do just that through outdoor and digital advertising, our social media content, partnerships with major media outlets like NBC and Telemundo, and programs that connected visitors directly with businesses and experiences across all 5 boroughs.

As you have heard from Maya, the economic impact of the World Cup was substantial. We created direct pathways to local businesses and neighborhoods. We funded borough grants delivered in partnership with borough presidents. We worked with NYU to distribute 13,000 toolkits to small businesses throughout the city with the help of our BIDS chambers and SBS, which gave local businesses ready-to-use World Cup marketing assets, messaging, and guidance.

We implemented an AI-enabled chatbot which connected visitors directly to World Cup information and recommendations in 50 languages. We designed and executed the 5 Borough Winner Special, a program offering $26 food and drink specials and commemorative cups, one for each borough. 133,000 were distributed to almost 1,000 local food and beverage businesses: 569 in Manhattan, 182 in Brooklyn, 152 in Queens, 33 in the Bronx, and 22 on Staten Island.

In a recent survey, which is still ongoing, 8 in 10 local business participants said they were satisfied with the program, and 9 in 10 said they would participate in a similar promotion again. Our World Cup calendar featured more than 1,700 events, offers, and borough-based experiences. This is 17 times the number included in our highest-performing event calendar of the past 3 years, which was for the city's 400th.

And our marketing produced measurable results. We were able to share more of this data in part because we were also funded to include measurement of our digital initiatives, using third-party tools. Specifically, we partnered with Tourism Economics to measure the $1 million portion, which was for a programmatic digital media buy of the World Campaign. This type of campaign uses technology to buy digital ads across several sites, focusing on people with very specific behavior.

In this case, we focused on those who showed intent to travel to New York City this summer and those who typically travel for big sporting events. This allows us to see how many people saw our ads and then arrived in the city. Our campaign influenced approximately 164,000 visitors who would not have otherwise visited without seeing that advertising.

Of those, 44% went to Brooklyn, 40% to Queens, 49% to Manhattan, 13% to Staten Island, and 24% to the Bronx. We also know the campaign generated an estimated $147 million in direct visitor spend, and $213 million in total economic impact. Ultimately, we saw that for every $1 spent on this digital advertising, those visitors spent $147 in New York City.

We also saw broader evidence that the visitor activity extended beyond Manhattan. Incremental visitor spending increased 19% in Brooklyn and 6% in Queens according to Visa credit card spending data. Hotel demand increased in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, and nearly 400 businesses outside of Manhattan participated in the 5 Borough Winter Special, as mentioned earlier, which illustrates significant borough dispersion.

These results demonstrate that our World Cup marketing investment helped broaden the event's economic footprint and brought measurable visitor activity into communities across the city. Secondly, in the goal of creating a joyous, welcoming citywide experience, In working with the mayor's office, we also deployed the unified Where the World Comes to Play campaign throughout the city. This manifested in billboards, airport signage, subway cards, bus signage, along with bus shelters and link screens throughout the city, which generated more than 1.2 billion impressions.

And our NBC and Telemundo partnership generated about 29 million television impressions. Our World Cup website content generated more than 1.3 million page views, which is 13 times higher than our historically highest performing campaigns connecting consumers to businesses, neighborhoods, events, and attractions throughout New York City. Online conversation about New York City, which we track through a system called Meltwater, which is a social media and press tracking platform, became markedly more positive during the World Cup.

In July, positive traveler sentiment reached its highest level of the year, which was about 11 percentage points above the pre-World Cup average. This increase suggests that the World Cup period coincided with a significant lift in positive conversation about the city. The World Cup demonstrated what New York City can achieve when a global moment is matched by a coordinated citywide effort.

Thanks to our partners at the Mayor's Office, Council, Borough Presidents, Maya Handa, EDC, SBS, the BIDs, and all the chambers, and sustained, sustained investment in tourism marketing that turns global attention into visitation and economic impact. We saw international visitor spending grow across multiple boroughs, hotel demand rise beyond Manhattan, engagement increase citywide, hundreds of local businesses participating, and a global campaign that reached millions with a clear message: New York City welcomes the world.

The additional $4.5 million investment allowed us to reach potential visitors at a scale we otherwise could not have achieved, particularly through outdoor and programmatic digital advertising. Our programs then gave those audiences concrete reasons to explore, engage, and spend throughout New York City. The City's investment in tourism during the World Cup is an example of how tourism yields significant impact across the 5 boroughs.

With sustained investment in destination marketing, New York City can continue to compete for high-spending visitors from around the world who explore every borough, turning that visitation into economic opportunity throughout the City. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to answering your questions.

All right. Well, thank you so much for your testimony. And I forgot to bring my World Cup cups, but I have the full set. And I have to commend you on the World Comes to Play marketing slogan, which I think we all really appreciated. Thank you also for sharing a lot of the numbers, and it's clear there was a substantial economic impact.

I heard $2 billion, $1.2 billion in direct spending, and 12— roughly 12K jobs created, and wanted to open to the panel to just dig in a bit more to the methodology that was used there, and if you could explain how we came to those numbers. Yep, I can jump in. Good afternoon, everybody. Justin Kramer with the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

So I'll start by saying both studies were done by Tourism Economics. Tourism Economics is a globally renowned organization that does specifically tourism economic analysis. It's the same organization that, for example, London used when they were reviewing their 2020 Olympics, amongst other recent hosts of the World Cup across the city have also used them as well. So very reputable organization.

The way that the numbers came to pass, and I'll kind of break it out into pieces here. So it starts off with identifying what is the direct spending. So the direct spending is broken up into 2 different parts. The first part of it is direct spending from visitors to New York City. And the way that number is calculated is it specifically looks at 2 different groups.

It takes kind of a bottom-up approach. So the first group is how many people attended a match from outside of the region. And so that number is— there was 645,000 people who attended the 8 matches. Of that number, 78% came from outside of the New York City region. So that is 508,000 people. On top of that, it looks at who attended the official World Cup fan zones and related events.

And through that, on top of it, there was another 626,000 people from outside of the region who came to New York. So this report specifically looks at visitors to New York City, not New York City residents spending. to be clear. So that's the— please. I'm laughing because last time I did this, it was also— I was too quiet.

So I will try to speak louder. My apologies. I feel like I'm eating the microphone now, with it this close to me. So that's how the visitor numbers were calculated. And then that information is put into a model that the organization has that looks at typical visitor spending, actual numbers of spending at the MetLife Stadium, et cetera, and by sector calculates an estimated amount of money that each visitor would spend in New York City.

The second part of the equation is operational spending. And so, that is money that the host committee spent to actually execute on the World Cup happening here in New York. in the region. And so that is money that went in from the federal government, money that went in from the state, money came in from various municipalities, uh, donors, uh, that were part of fundraising efforts that the host committee made.

And so that collective amount, uh, is the amount of operational spending. So you take both the visitor spending, you take the operational spending, and that's where you get the— Revenue. for New York City specifically, the $1.2 billion in direct spending. Now, the economic impact of those dollars and those visitors don't stop with direct spending. There are some knock-on effects as well, specifically indirect spending and also induced spending.

So to give an example of indirect spending, If I own a restaurant in Brooklyn and I need to buy more fish, let's say, to serve the additional customers who are coming in because of the World Cup, that's the indirect spending as a result of the visitor spending coming into the city, if that makes sense. So that's— that is indirect spending.

And then the induced spending is sticking with the analogy of the restaurant. If a A waiter, let's say, works at the restaurant and they picked up an extra shift where they get additional tips or whatever it may be, that extra money gets recycled into the city's economy as well. So they're going to go back to their neighborhood and they're going to spend that money at their local bodega.

They're going to spend it maybe on the rent. They're going to spend it on other things. So there is an analysis that's done that calculates roughly how much that is, both for indirect and for induced. And so that number— Again, for New York City specifically, is about $700,000 added on top of the direct spending. So $1.2— sorry, $1.3 plus $700,000 is how we got to the $2 billion number.

And the same process works out for the regional numbers that you all had cited as well before, which was the regionals. It was $1.9 billion in direct spending and $3.5 billion in overall economic impact. I can also answer the question on the job supported as well. I believe that was part of it. Yeah, cool. I'm learning a lot.

Yes. I feel like I'm a professor slowly breaking down step by step. So the way that the job supported was calculated is by sector. They track each dollar that is spent can be attributed to supporting a job or multiple jobs within that sector. And so based off that total spending broken up by the sectors, it then multiplies that dollar by the number of jobs that dollar supported.

And that's how the 12,100 jobs was calculated. And to be clear, those aren't new jobs. Those are jobs that are supported. There may be some new jobs that were in there, seasonal jobs that came in. full-time jobs, but that— you can't distinguish that through the analysis. So for— on the jobs, were those just temporary over the period, or how are you thinking about the long-term impact?

Yeah, for the analysis that was done by Tourism Economics, it doesn't disaggregate the information to that level. So all up, I guess, what do you expect the city tax revenue generated by that $2 billion economic impact to be? And as a refresher, while we're talking about that, the city investment was roughly $90 million, I believe. So just trying to get at what the return was if we got our money back, so to say.

Absolutely. So this was an event that stretched across multiple agencies, multiple levels of government and multiple fiscal years. So we're still evaluating both the total cost of the event as well as the projected tax revenue. What we do know from today's analysis is that the World Cup brought around $2 billion to New York City's economy, supported 12,000 jobs, and reached across all 5 boroughs.

On the— I guess you've now completed this analysis. How does it compare to what the projections were? Where were you? Where were you on point? Where were projections a bit off? So to make one— thank you for the question— uh, to distinguish one thing. So the initial projections that you all may remember, which was regionally $3.3 billion, that was for the region.

That was also done by Tourism Economics. So the same company? The same company, correct, that did both post-World Cup the city and the region. We intentionally chose the same organizations so we have an apples-to-apples comparison. There was no pre-New York City-specific analysis done, so we only can look at the regional analysis, which again netted out to be $3.3 billion, and then the post-World Cup was $3.5 billion.

So as a region, we saw a bump or an increase of $200 billion, which is positive. We can't break it down further than that because we have no baseline to compare it to for the city. But we do know that we did see a lift in a lot of numbers that show that there was people who came to the city.

Subway ridership up. NYC Ferry ridership up. Citi Bike ridership up, I think, 20%. I'll backtrack myself here, but roughly 20% more international visitors using Citi Bike versus the previous year. Thank you. On the visitors, the total number of out-of-state visitors, if you could remind me. Yeah, the total of visitors was roughly 1.1— let's see here— 1.134 million.

And do we have a sense of whether or not those visitors were actually attending the Cup or going to the free events and how that Yeah, so— Oh, I forgot. The breakout was those who attended the matches, 508,000 people from outside the region attended the matches. And then there was another 626,000 who attended events within the city that were official World Cup events.

So, roughly 50/50. Yeah. For those of us looking for simple numbers. One last question here on the opportunity cost. So, summer is a big tourism period for New York City. Does the analysis have or speak to the opportunity cost from displacing regular tourists for the FIFA-related ones? If you could speak to that. Yeah, thank you for the question, and I meant to bring that up earlier, so thank you.

The analysis at Tourism Economics does take into consideration displacement from those who may have not come to New York City because of higher hotel costs or because they frankly didn't want to be in the city when there was an influx of more people being here. And so that number was removed from the $2 billion number, so it's already incorporated into it.

Keep in mind that also does not take into consideration that a lot of people were exposed to the World Cup, New York City through the World Cup, and so it may lead to new tourists coming, and also folks who may have just delayed their trip and will still come to the city, just pushed it back by a few weeks.

Can I add briefly? So initially when we took office, the plan had been for there to be a The games would be in New Jersey and the Fan Fest would be in New Jersey as well. And so, one of the things our administration did was work with the FIFA host committee to bring Fan Fest to the 5 boroughs.

And so, the 600,000 number of people who came from outside of this region to New York City for the World Cup, you know, they could have gone to New Jersey for the Fan Fest. And in the end, we had free Fan Fests across all 5 boroughs, which we feel really strongly did drive visitation. visitation and also spend across the 5 boroughs.

And that reminds me of a stat I meant to mention earlier. To Maya's point, the city did capture 70% of visitor spending in the region. Relative to New Jersey? To the whole region. So the whole region experienced $1.7 billion in visitor spending, and we got 70% of that. So clear majority. You mentioned higher prices. I'm curious if you have a sense of how much of that $2.2 billion economic impact is from higher prices due to more demand, for example.

I think that was true with hotel pricing or additional transactions. So the model did take into consideration— well, I'll take a step back. So the model is based off of something that's called an in-plan input/output model. And that model is an industry-agreed-upon model that is calibrated to the New York City market. And so, based off the prices of goods or services, based off the different sectors.

And so, the report did take into consideration a bump in prices for— I'm sorry. lodging. I'm happy to follow up with some more information on that.

I want to acknowledge that we were joined by Councilmember Hanif and that Councilmember Riley was here earlier. And now I'll pass to my co-chair. Thank you, Chair. My first question is, do we know the economic impact of New York City tourism the same period in 2025? Sorry, do you mean total visitor spend? Yes. Well, like, because we're comparing— we're saying the World Cup generated $2 billion in total economic impact and $1.2 billion in direct visitor spending.

Do you know those numbers for 2025? We can come back to you. We don't have it broken out in that way, but we can. Okay. Just to get a better understanding of where we really netted from the World Cup. Second question, the World Cup and the 250th celebration overlapped. Have you assessed how much of that economic impact can be attributed directly to the World Cup versus what can be attributed to the visitors we got for the 250th anniversary?

Yeah, so the way that tourism may not— economics went about trying to disaggregate that information as best as possible was, again, using as the baseline of the analysis of that number of people who attended a World Cup game from out of the market and those who attended a World Cup-affiliated event from outside the market. And so that's the base that was used.

If you were here for the Knicks parade specifically, or anything else, that would not be counted if you didn't go to the game or you didn't go to an official Fan Fest. Good point. I forgot about the Knicks in 5. So I'm just curious, like, how do you separate that? The way it's separated is identifying who specifically went to— like, who came to New York City with the intent of watching a World Cup match.

Right, who bought a ticket from out of the market. And so that is one portion of the equation. And then the other portion of the equation is who showed up to an authorized or an official World Cup fan zone event. And based off that information is how we get to determine that that person came to New York City for the World Cup specifically.

Okay, so what if I wanted to come and I celebrated the Knicks in 5, came to the parade and said, oh man, there's a FanFest in my neighborhood, I wanna go and check that out. I wasn't coming for the World Cup, but I came to celebrate the Knicks. So are we counting what could have otherwise brought someone to the city as World Cup if they just happened to stumble upon World Cup activities?

I'd have to go look at the calendar, but from what I recall, the parade was kind of at the beginning of the World Cup and where that overlapped with the fan zone events. Or just in general, I come to New York, I wanna come see a play, but I'm like, oh my gosh, the World Cup. And I may wanna check something out.

So currently right now, there's no way of us saying someone came specifically for World Cup and this is what generated versus someone came Just because this is New York City and then decided to partake in any World Cup activities? So a lion's share of the analysis is based on people who came to New York City who purchased a ticket and bought a ticket to go and watch a match from outside of the region.

Okay. We talked about the food and beverage businesses. 1,000 local food and beverage businesses What was it? 133,000 of the drink specials and commemorative cups were distributed to 1,000 local food and beverage businesses. How many food and local beverage businesses do we have in New York City? I don't know that I have the latest count, but it's typically around 20,000, something like that.

Is that correct? Yeah. So roughly, I don't have a calculator in front of me, how much would 20,000 businesses, 1,000 of those, what percentage? 1%? We did a very comprehensive outreach plan through BID, council chambers, Latino Restaurant Association, the New York Hospitality Alliance, Hospitality Association, our member base. We went to non-members. We went all throughout the city looking for participation as best we could.

It is voluntary, but we tried to really put a full-court press on outreach. Okay, found a calculator. 5%, is that right? Okay. There were Fan Fests in all 5 boroughs, and I'm thankful that there was some activity outside of Manhattan, with one of the largest Fan Fests being in my district in Queens. in a stadium that holds over 25,000 people.

Do you think 6% economic activity during that time is a win? Let alone, I don't even think the Bronx and Staten Island, I don't even think you guys had a trickle. A blip. Sorry, the 6% you're referring to? Do you mind going over that? It says, broader evidence, visitor activity extended beyond Manhattan, international visitors spending increased 19% in Brooklyn and 6% in Queens.

Bronx and Staten Island aren't mentioned, but 6% in Queens where we hosted a Fan Fest for, I want to say, almost like 3 weeks in a stadium that hosts over 25,000 people. I appreciate that question. I'll say we were really proud to work with the FIFA host committee to make sure that that Fan Fest was free and thus maximally accessible to both the surrounding community and visitors from out of town to drive maximum folks into the borough and to be celebrating the World Cup accordingly.

Okay. And the numbers that we cited for spend, for visitor spend, was pulled from Visa card data. So we will only include Visa card. That's the source we were able to pull. Okay. Are we looking at pulling data from any other sources to see what the true impact was? We can do that. There are, you know, additional costs to doing that.

We can— American Express also offers that, but we were able to get it most quickly from Visa. Okay. I'll move on. Zarr, you had mentioned some of the great, like, infrastructure projects related to the World Cup that was done, and while I know many many of my colleagues in many communities may have appreciated. But do you think it was fair or appropriate to expedite city-related infrastructure projects without any community board or community input or heads up that it was happening?

We were very, very excited to be able to create long-term improvements to city infrastructure. across the 5 boroughs for the support of visitor travel as well as resident travel. And that was extremely important to us, was to see that long-term benefit. As far as the process, I would need to get back to you on the specifics of the process, but our hope is that it continues to be of benefit to both folks in the surrounding communities who can hopefully benefit from, you know, safer bus lanes or faster buses— or safer bike lanes, sorry, and faster buses. as well as future visitors.

Okay, and the genesis of that question is one of those bike lanes was in the adjacent community but sits in the community board that I represent, which is Community Board 3, where there was a bus lane put in to expedite travel from LaGuardia Airport. While I see the sense of getting visitors, it was a hardship to community and there was no insight or input or just a heads up.

So we understand that getting travelers around safely and more efficiently works. But also, in that same corridor, there was nothing done to improve access to the number 7 line, where visitors going to the Fan Fest in Queens could have stopped at, say, 103rd Street and visited Corona Plaza. Currently, that station, you can't even get off there if you're coming in from Manhattan.

So just to look at things that would— infrastructure that would help the communities and not just the visitors coming. to New York City. And a question kind of to piggyback off that, it was easy to expedite infrastructure plans but harder for businesses to get permits to help benefit them during the World Cup. Any insight into why we were able to move more effectively and efficiency for infrastructure for visitors but weren't able to give our small businesses the same access to opportunities to help their businesses during this time?

I want to speak— I'll speak a little bit to the permit question and would also love to turn it over to Horace to talk about the ways in which we engaged with small businesses to make sure they could benefit from the World Cup. We'll just note that, you know, PD officers worked hard throughout the entire tournament to keep New Yorkers and visitors alike safe.

And we owe them all a debt of gratitude for their tireless efforts. And we worked both with PD but also a host of agencies to determine which events were feasible amidst a suite of summer programming. And so happy to find more information about specifics, but we were balancing, you know, the range of keeping people safe, allowing joyous events to occur, and provided lots of resources for folks, especially small businesses, to host their own events.

And I will let Haris speak to that, and then also I think Nancy can probably say more about the toolkit as well. Thank you so much, Councilmember, for your question. I do want to take a moment to acknowledge all that our World Cup czar just mentioned on the complexity of the summer, a summer that we will never forget thanks to her work and the efforts of city workers across this government.

And I also wanted to acknowledge, in thanking her for her work, Whenever decisions were being made around SAPO permitting processes, there was more clarity coming out as a result of all of the complex coordination work that was necessary to keep New Yorkers safe. The minute these things were happening, we were in close coordination. SBS would be notified.

We would work together in briefing the business improvement districts across the city, as well as other merchants associations that are involved with street activations. Obviously, not everyone was able to do all the events that they wanted to do because of a summer of a lifetime that we were experiencing. But wanted to really acknowledge that there was a conscious effort made at every step of the way that as decisions were made, there was no gap between the time that business improvement districts and merchants associations were then hearing of the decisions that were reached as a result of the capacity needs during the summer.

And I do appreciate the outreach. I know you had come before this committee several times in preparing for World Cup, and it was literally a new administration, and it was 6 months later is the World Cup. So I understand there was a lot of planning and do appreciate the outreach.

So my next question, it's not a right or wrong, and don't take it any bad way, but do you think it was as successful as it could have been? I mean, as we've heard, our businesses didn't have the opportunities that they would have liked, and not just our small businesses. We had organizations that hosted block parties annually, and because we were getting ready for this large event and visitors, they were no longer to do what they had done in their hometown year after year after year.

Right. And in addition to do— if you think it was successful, what can we do differently, i.e., 2028 when the Olympics come? How are— what are the lessons learned from the World Cup that we're going to take to 2028? Deeply appreciate that question, and it's the question we should all be asking ourselves, and looking forward to working together on, on future major events.

I think we believe that the World Cup was an enormous success. It was a boom for the city's economy, adding $2 billion to the local economy, supporting over 12,000 jobs, and increasing foot traffic to our sports bars by 16%. It was also a celebration for everyone, right? We had more than 100 free watch parties across the cities, with our parks, plazas, and public markets hosting tens of thousands of people.

And really want to shout out EDC activating public markets, really want to shout out New York City Tourism and SBS. We had a borough grant program for borough presidents to support local businesses in their area and host events. And we turned city streets into pickup games, opened up our soccer fields throughout the entire night so that people could play 24/7, thus increasing access to recreational space for folks who don't ordinarily get that opportunity.

And we really tried to focus on the 5 boroughs, right? So we drove foot traffic across all 5 boroughs. And saw the stats that you mentioned. And I think would really note when it comes to lessons learned, we've talked a lot about this and also welcome others' perspective here. We came in in January and as you mentioned, the World Cup started in June.

And so I do think that there was a lot that was constrained by or guided by decisions of a previous administration, which is exactly what it is. And with that in mind, We strove to work 24/7 to make sure that this was a joyful celebration for the city and the city benefited. So I don't think it will surprise anyone to hear that a reflection is we wish we had been mayor one year ago and would be able to start earlier.

And I think that's absolutely what we plan to do for future events, the Olympics, hopefully the Women's World Cup many years in the future, and just thinking through how we can make sure that major events with the proper advance planning can really benefit our small businesses as well as the residents of New York. I would also add that a lesson learned that we spoke about on the coordination side was the benefit of having coordination directly in City Hall to make sure that across agencies, both for logistics, preparedness, infrastructure, but also for a coordinated campaign that stretched out the city and enabled the city to celebrate and was that point of contact for the host committee, for New Jersey, New York, in the region, I think was of enormous benefit to the city and really led to things being able to move very quickly in the time that we had.

And happy to also turn it over to anyone else for other reflections and would also love to hear from y'all's perspective. I would love to pile on to that point. We put together our initial proposal for our incremental funding about a year prior. Had we started then, and this is all hindsight, but it's good learning for the future, we would have started really focusing on driving international visitation at that time because the planning windows are longer for international visitors.

They spend more, they're valuable, and that's, you know, that's very strategic. We know when folks from Canada versus Japan typically tend to plan. By the time this really kicked in, which was really at the end of March, we had to shift, and that's okay. I think we got different KPIs out of this. We were not able— the occupancy and demand were fairly flat, but we did see increases in the boroughs, not in Manhattan.

So that's great. However, I think the dispersion was what we really focused on with every opportunity, and we did see positive impact across every tactic. When we partnered with NBC and Telemundo, we did not focus on Broadway and Times Square. We focused on Mott Haven. We saw almost a 44% increase in intent to visit. Brooklyn. We saw a 40% increase intent to go to Queens, 24% in the Bronx, 13% in Staten Island.

This is impactful because it primes the pump for us moving forward. So now we get ready to do a campaign in the fall that goes into next year. We're going to leverage the digital media and the audiences that we built and the momentum we built. So it was a very positive experience. I think a lot of folks saw the organic content that came up.

Social media. People had a wonderful time here. So we're leveraging it. I think we feel it was successful from a dispersion perspective. But I think we would have shifted a little bit if we had more time on really driving that visitor when we were experiencing a lot of headwinds with international travel going in. So all in, I think that and the coordinated campaign really helped amplify the message when we're all saying the same thing at the same time.

Yeah, you want to add? Yeah, just a couple of quick things to add. I would say this administration, you know, made it clear from the very beginning that we wanted to bring the World Cup to New Yorkers. And so a big lesson from EDC, but our colleagues as well, was how do we use city assets to accomplish that goal?

And so within EDC, we organized 28 events And we used 25 of them at our public markets, because our public markets are great places that are community centers and are largely made up of businesses, almost 100% of businesses based in New York City. So, that's one, leveraging city assets to bring the benefits of the World Cup to all 5 boroughs.

And then the other one is, and the Zara mentioned this in her opening testimony, is much like UNGA, which was here last week, and other large-scale events happen in New York. It's not just tourists who come to New York City during events like this. It's also businesses and business owners and investors. So it's a chance for us to really showcase New York as a place to invest in and to open a business in.

And so we took the opportunity, stepping away from the fun of the Games, to bring together the business community that was visiting New York City to really sell them and pitch them on New York City in hopes that part of the long tail of the of the World Cup would be these businesses would open up offices in New York, employ New Yorkers, contribute tax revenue, et cetera.

Before I turn it over to my colleague, you asked for recommendations. From the small business side, consult our small business partners, our BIDs, our chambers, and the like. Start planning now. 2028 will be here before we know it. And for tourism, I think the World Cup showed us that Well, no, we know New York is a dynamic city in all 5 boroughs.

I'd argue that a lot of visitors and the— from Mott Haven to Corona, all the activity in those corridors are something for people to experience anytime, not just when they're coming in town for the World Cup. When Ecuador beat Germany, Junction Boulevard in my district was one of the hottest places to be. So when you're promoting New York City to travelers, promote our neighborhoods.

They're there, they're bustling, they're thriving, and we need that economic activity to sustain our small businesses.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Councilmember Banks for questions. Thank you, chairs, for this important committee. $90 million invested by the city, $2 billion brought back to the New York City economy. Good job, guys. Let me first of all relegated to public housing. And I think this is important when we have close to 511,000, a little under 500,000 residents, or a little over 500,000 residents who live in public housing, 87,000 in Brooklyn, close to 86,000 in the Bronx, 30,000 in Queens, 9,000 in Staten Island, 86,000 in Manhattan.

Recently there was a survey done by the CSS, Community Service Society, which showed that the unemployment rate in public housing is anywhere between 20% to 22%. And we know that the unemployment rate amongst NYCHA residents is higher than the overall rate citywide. Specifically, when it comes to public housing, I want to understand whether NYCHA residents specifically included in the city's World Cup employment procurement or vending or business outreach strategies?

And was there any direct partnership with EDC and New York City Housing Authority? Thank you for the question, Councilmember. I'll start off by just providing context on the spending itself. So the previous administration provided $20 million for the World Cup, and then the current administration provided an additional $15 million. Of that amount of money, the— that money was then allocated for the use of the host committee.

The host committee contract with EDC through the city was based off a 2018— Okay. But I need you to be specific to NYCHA. Were there any NYCHA residents who obtained employment or contracting opportunities connected? That was a long wind-up. So I would say that the answer to that question— If you can bring the data, if you have to go find the data and bring it back, we'll appreciate it.

I'd rather you— if you don't have it now, we appreciate it. I do not have the information, but I was just going to say that after us, the head of the host committee will be here, and he may be able to answer that question as well. Okay, well, I'll just get this for the record as well. Um, you know, were there any Nitro resident-owned businesses who participated, uh, who were part of the city or the host committee initiatives?

Any Nitro residents who own businesses? I can, I can look into that data and get it for you. I'll note that We worked with Tourism and Conventions to provide $75,000 grants to each borough president to facilitate watch parties and events across each borough, and that included a variety of partnerships. And so that's probably where we'll be digging in.

So would specifically show any real— any connection or affiliation with NYCHA residents? Yeah, we can get back to you. Thank you. Did any World Cup-related programming, youth initiative, or workforce event or small business campaign take place directly with any— within any of the NYCHA resident developments? We can get you that information. Okay. Go ahead. Thank you, Councilmember, for your question.

So at SBS, we were the outreach arm for the city's efforts to promote and ensure that small businesses were getting connected to all of the promotional opportunities that were being unlocked through either the host committee. So did you do any outreach to NYCHA? We did outreach. We prioritized outreach in Black and brown communities and immigrant communities. We were in Jackson Heights, in Port Richmond, in Harlem, and we went to Jamaica, Elmhurst.

We went to so many different communities in the outer boroughs, in neighborhoods where we know, especially for the immigrant-owned community concentrations, the threats from the non-local law enforcement had created a— But I'm specifically talking about public housing. Yes, so including— So I just want you to— Public housing in North Shore of Staten Island, in Queens, in Brooklyn.

Okay. We visited, and collectively across all of those efforts, we reached over 1,800 businesses that we canvassed, including street vendors. Okay. Were NYCHA community centers or resident associations or youth programs offered funding or other resources to organize local watch parties, soccer clinics, or related programming? I can get you exact numbers on that. We— I will note that we resourced HHS to host watch parties at the city's remaining asylum seeker shelters and 8 shelters for families with children.

Okay, excellent. Um, and what was the total value of the World Cup-related contracts and, uh, subcontracts awarded to city businesses. Chairs, if you may indulge me for a couple more minutes. Thank you. You go on ahead. Appreciate it. For those contracts. So the total amount that was allocated to the— The total value of the World Cup contracts and subcontracts awarded to New York City businesses.

So we have to— we'll have to get back to you on that. Yes. And I guess of the total, how much were awarded to the MWBEs? How much was awarded to businesses located outside of Manhattan? How much was awarded to businesses with fewer than 50 employees? How much was awarded to street vendors and NYCHA residents-owned businesses, which we Brought that up earlier.

How long did small vendors and subcontracts have to wait for payment for World Cup-related work? Are any invoices or payments still outstanding? Were any payment disputes filed? And have any businesses reported that they have not yet been fully compensated? We can get you the exact details on that. I will note that the $75,000 borough president grants also supported the Queens Night Market and a watch party on Governors Island with a street vendor fair and other such events.

And so we can get you the information around that. All right. We'll be waiting for the information numbers for NYCHA.

And then my last— Councilmember Banks, we have a— I'll come back in the second round. There you go. Thank you. Round 2, Councilmember Marano. Appreciate it. Thank you. I wasn't going to rush you. I thought you were great. Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for your testimony and for your work. You know, I am the first person to be critical of the administration when warranted.

So I do think the— it's important for me to say, and for all of us, that the administration deserves a great deal of credit here. New York City didn't host a single World Cup match. Yet, according to the preliminary analysis released today, the city captured $2 billion in economic impact. That's pretty significant. So congratulations to all of you for that.

But while we have all of you here, all the people that made that happen, I'd like to get beyond the big number and kind of follow up with what some of my colleagues were touching upon, and that's where the money actually went. So that headline is $2 billion in economic impact. Right. And I appreciate, Mr. Kramer, the differentiation between indirect activity and other types of economic activity.

If I'm a restaurant owner on Highland Boulevard, I can't necessarily deposit economic impact at the bank. Of that $2 billion, how much can we say actually went to independently owned New York City small businesses? Not hotels generally, Not induced economic activity, not national chains. Do we know how many dollars actually went through the cash registers of New York City small businesses?

The $2 billion analysis that you're referring to doesn't break the information down to that level. Anybody else have— Councilmember Sawant. Councilmember Sawant, defer to our colleagues at the Economic Development Corporation on the economic analysis they conducted, but it was too easy when you mentioned Highland Boulevard. There's a burger joint that just opened up, CD Burger, and the first— as they were doing their grand opening, they were featuring a World Cup game.

And so part of the reason folks came to that grand opening was not just the delicious burgers they were serving, but because they had a FIFA World Cup game on. And that's the type of engagement we saw throughout the city. It was really a summer where, whether it was at the businesses where you saw record levels of engagement and attendance, and business owners anecdotally have shared their experiences with the summer where it was the Knicks championship run, then game after game, but it was also in the homes of many of our family members where we're ordering from businesses.

No, and I've had the similar anecdotal observations, but if, if nobody If none of the agencies can necessarily answer that question of how much went to New York City small businesses, shouldn't that be one of the lessons of this World Cup? For the next mega-event, whether it's the Olympics or something else, shouldn't we decide beforehand that we're going to measure how much of that economic benefit actually reaches small businesses, and then come up with a metric or a series of metrics?

to determine how we're going to get there. Yeah, a couple of points, uh, to your, your comments, and thank you for them. Um, one is the analysis that was released this morning, the, the $2 billion one, uh, is an initial analysis. There'll be additional information that Tourism Economics will be sharing with us, including a breakdown by sector.

Again, does not go down to the, the level that you're looking for, but we'll know, uh, lodging, retail, etc. So we'll, we'll have that information. We'll be happy to to share with you all once that is available. Second point is, as part of our contract with Tourism Economics, we are going to be conducting a survey of small businesses around the city as well.

We'll be partnering with SBS, the BIDs, and other groups, NYC Tourism, of course, to do that postmortem, as you just mentioned, to find out how many people from the participation, how many people saw a lift in revenue, did they hire additional people, those type of questions. So we would, we would be pleased to work with you all to make sure that the survey gets out because that information and data that comes back in will be really helpful for us to then help plan for 2028 for the Olympics and hopefully 2031 for the Women's World Cup.

We're also surveying the 1,000 or so businesses that participated participated in the 5 Borough Cut Program Winter Special. We only have 68 so far, but we're working on it. So, yeah, similarly, we'd love to work with you to— we want to make sure there was a return, and that's how we're going to find out. Chair Thomas Henry was kind enough to mention Staten Island, and I appreciate your testimony that says nearly 1,000 businesses participated in the 5 Borough Winter Special, but the breakdown was 589 Manhattan, 182 Brooklyn, 152 Queens, 33 in the Bronx, and 28 in Staten Island.

28. So my question is not, why did you discriminate against Staten Island? I certainly don't think anybody did. My question is a little more basic. Did anybody notice? So while this program was happening, was anybody in city government looking at a dashboard that said, we've got 589 businesses in Manhattan, 28 on Staten Island, maybe we ought to make some calls or do something to up that 28 number to 30, 35, 40?

And who specifically owned that responsibility? Is it you, Madam Zar? Is it tourism? Is it SBS? Is it somebody else? Because I think there's a larger lesson here. I think if there's something we can measure after a government ends— after government observation ends, it should be something we manage while the program is happening. I think that's also a lesson for the next event as well.

I think I completely agree. I don't know that we had a live dashboard, but I have 3 pages of businesses that we reached out to in terms of associations, bids, chambers. It's largely a manual process, unfortunately. So we tried to multiply it by going through the bids and chambers and the restaurant associations. I think with the time we had, again, not to punt that question, but I think if we had additional timing, we probably could have started earlier and began to do a little bit more on the outreach and try to kind of keep that tally going so we were properly balanced when we launched the program.

Thanks very much. I don't want to speak for my other colleagues, but I know my office called and was like, just bring us the cups. We'll drop them off. You have resources. We want to help because we want to see our small to succeed.

At this time, I'll turn it over to Councilmember Brooks Powers. Thank you, chairs, and thank you for your testimony today. My first question centers around return on the city's investment. Has the city formally requested the $1 million legacy contribution from FIFA? If it is paid, will the city commit to investing it in soccer pitches or youth programs?

I can get you more information. I'm not sure if we've formally requested it from FIFA, though we've been in conversation about legacy. And I know that the host committee is building many pitches and has built at least— I can let them answer that question. Many pitches are in the process of being built in the 5 boroughs, and would add that, you know, we're in ongoing conversations about what the legacy of the World Cup looks like, both from the infrastructure perspective and from the investment perspective.

And we'll note that we absolutely want to make sure that a legacy invests in accessible opportunities to play for New Yorkers. Absolutely. Next, I want to pivot to lodging and visitor spending. Hotel revenue rose because room rates went up, not necessarily because more people stayed here. Does New York City Tourism track how many World Cup visitors stayed outside the city because they couldn't find or afford a place to stay in New York?

And what did the data that you do have show? Unfortunately, we only track what's happening in the 5 boroughs. Okay. Reaching Queens businesses and neighborhoods, and this is for SBS. About 60% of 5 Borough Winners special businesses were in Manhattan. How many participants were in Queens, and how many in Southeast Queens and the Rockaways specifically? We have 152 in Queens total.

I do have a complete list of participants so I can come back to you with that where it all breaks down by neighborhoods that go within— Will you be able to do it while we're in the hearing? Possibly. Okay. I have a number in my mind. I just want to see if it is in alignment. I'm not sure if I brought the spreadsheet, but I definitely will follow up with you.

Okay. EDC. Etihad Park in Queens will host 9 Olympic soccer matches in 2028. Before committing city funds, will the city require local hiring, MWBE, and local procurement commitments, and a clear share of security costs borne by the organizers? So this administration for this World Cup was committed to making sure that the benefits reached all 5 boroughs of New York City, including women-owned, minority-owned businesses, et cetera.

And so while the planning for 2028 has not started, the lessons learned from this World Cup will be applied for that. And it's something that we will definitely look into and will seek to achieve. Have you guys made public the data from what we recently just completed in terms of like the— particularly the MBE participation and opportunity?

So that information is best to be asked to the host committee who will be testifying next, as they are the ones who— EDC served as the— as the host committee. the disbursement vehicle or reimbursement vehicle for the funding, but they would have the best tabulations of where all the money went to in terms of that type of breakdown.

Understood. And then lastly for SBS, what will SBS do differently so that Queens small businesses, especially those outside the immediate stadium area, have materials and outreach in their languages from day one? Thank you, Councilmember. Um, we were really excited to engage the minute NYC Tourism and SBS landed on the business toolkit, which included all the different promotional materials.

We went on a multimodal outreach campaign. We did email marketing, webinars, door-to-door canvassing across our 5 boroughs, and we collectively reached over 280,000 New Yorkers to ensure that they were educated and the opportunities that were available. In those 2 months, even when we were doing corridor walks with council members, many of you actually remember that one-pager that we were bringing to our walks with elected officials.

But that was just one vehicle of 6, 7 different mechanisms by which we were making sure New Yorkers were hearing and learning about the opportunities by which they could help promote their businesses. And it was exciting. There was— we did not make assumptions on the types of businesses that would want to be featured on tourism's calendar. And we had a relatively new bubble tea shop in Astoria, Queens that decided a day before the start of the World Cup games that they would actually go really hard on the World Cup and do a bunch of watch parties.

And by knowing about the calendar, they were able to quickly sign up. Thank you for that. And just going back to the World Cup czar briefly, the second part of the question wasn't answered in terms of— I know you got to follow up on the $1 million, but in the event that it is going to be paid, is the city willing to commit to investing in the soccer pitches and youth programs?

I wasn't clear on that part. I will have to get back to you. I think absolutely in terms of values we are aligned. I will note that, you know, one thing we are thinking about when it comes to building new pitches is that right now we have a lot of pitches that don't have lighting, for example. And so expanding access may look like more than just building a new field.

It may look like programming for existing fields, expanding, expanding lighting hours, There are many ways that that money can be invested well to increase access for young people and increase program opportunities. I can't commit just because I'm not certain of what the details would look like, but that is absolutely our priority and our goal.

I'll just say it shouldn't be either/or, it should be and, because like, for example, community— I've been getting a lot of incoming from Rockaway schools wanting to see soccer brought there. We have a new school being built that's opening soon. soon that has a soccer field that they created, but that's for that school. But just wanting to have more public spaces for that in other parts of Southeast Queens as well.

Thank you, Chairs. Thank you. Councilmember Riley. Thank you, Chairs, uh, for this meeting. Thank you so much for the panel. I just want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues, especially Councilmember Banks. I think you guys did a tremendous job, um, and under a limited time $2 billion investments is amazing. I am a little bit disappointed, being from the Bronx, that 28 was the number that we were given.

I think opportunities for outer borough connection, when we have large-scale events like this, needs to be a little bit more fleshed out. We have beautiful communities in the Bronx. City Island alone could have took a lot of people there during this time. So I just wanted to— Thank you. I wanted to share that sentiment and see how we could, I guess, connect in the future when we see the Olympics coming here on how we can make that a little bit better.

I wanted to talk about job creation. I know during the largest thing that we always— or the benefit from large events like this is job creation. Is there a breakdown on the local residents who were hired during the World Cup, and do you have a breakdown on the type of occupations that they were hired for? Thank you for the, the, the question, Councilmember.

We don't have a breakdown of that information. The 12,100 jobs was based off of a model that Tourism Economics uses, but it's, it's not, um, uh, it doesn't go down to that level of detail. Okay. Um, large-scale events could also be a burden on communities. I know we did a lot of planning, there was a lot of street closures.

Trust me, uh, block parties were a big thing in our districts, and they could have happened because of this event. So what are the steps that the city is taking to prevent residents and small businesses from bearing the disproportionate burden from events like this? I would also love for SBS to speak a little bit to the outreach that we did around toolkits and kind of preparing for the World Cup, but we'll note that we We're working very closely with BIDS, and we want to make sure— I think with more time, could work more closely and be continuing that conversation.

And so looking forward to 2028 planning, but really wanted to work closely with folks to get out the word about how to apply for a permit, when a permit is not required, all of those pieces. And I think we did a variety of multimodal outreach, whether it was the small business toolkit, working with city council members, working with BIDS. to get the word out.

And I'll let you speak more. Thank you, Councilmember, for your question. I'd also like to add, so while there may be— by not having the ability for every single neighborhood, every single commercial corridor to have a block party, that does potentially create the risk of having, but also benefit and opportunity for small businesses to absorb more of that traffic.

So what we were really excited to do with our czar and the FDNY commissioner was do a social media video that reached over 50,000 New Yorkers on for small business owners to tell them, look, we're in this World Cup season. This brings a tremendous opportunity to you, but you should also know all of the things you should do to protect your business from the surge of visitors and ensuring that you're complying and making sure fire safety is maintained, making sure you're doing everything that's possible and promoting our New York City Business Express Service team, which provides one-on-one compliance consultations to these business owners to ensure that they have everything that they need and they're prepared on day one to absorb the, the kind of customers that we saw throughout the city.

And it's exciting, even if a neighborhood did not have a Sable permit issued, there were neighborhoods where people went in droves after the Games, during the Games, and sometimes created conditions on the commercial corridor, but oftentimes were packing all of the small businesses. And I can only think of Bay Ridge and Astoria, and we talked about Junction Boulevard, all the neighborhoods where we saw tremendous economic— White Plains Road.

And White Plains Road, yes. Lastly, I believe the chief marketing officer stated that you guys are only tracking what's happening here in the 5 boroughs when it comes to lodging. I would encourage to see what's happening because we do know a lot of people did stay across the Hudson in New Jersey during this, this World Cup, even though they wanted to stay in New York City.

Did you guys also track outside of hotels, maybe short-term rentals with homeowners? Is that also data that's being tracked that was being utilized during the World Cup? Yeah, unfortunately, no, we don't track Airbnb data at all. Okay. All right. I think you should look into that possibly, um, because I, I do know we got a lot— I, I represent a homeownership district and they wanted to benefit from the World Cup as well, uh, and that could have put tremendous, uh, restraints on a lot of them from doing it because of the current model.

So if we could just look into that as well. Uh, thank you, chairs. All right. Thank you.

I want to dig into a bit of the spending questions on where the city's $90 million went. On my end, I have $35 million that went through EDC and primarily was passed through the host committee, $4.5 million to NYC Tourism, $50.2 million to the NYPD. Could you share the final spending figures on how they were broken out by agency, if there are any changes from what I just shared?

Sure. I can start off with the $35 million portion that you referenced, Councilmember. So yes, you are correct. $35 million was allocated for the host committee. They ultimately ended up spending about $33.4, $33.5 million of it. That remaining balance, $1.6 million, $1.5 million, was used by the city instead for community events, branding, dressing the city type of activities.

For the host committee itself, the scope of work that they were asked to execute upon was largely broken out into— sorry, broken out into 4 different areas. The first is the Okay. So, one is actual cost for operating the nonprofit that was set up as the host committee. 2 is the fan zones themselves. 3 is promotional activities to get people to come and be aware and to get people to go visit the 5 boroughs while they're here.

So, promotional activities. And then 4th is the operational logistics as it relates to safety, transportation, transportation, et cetera. So those are the 4 categories of spending. And I can add from specific agencies, between Parks, DOT, NYSERDA, and a few other agencies, I know that some of standard budget was just repurposed, for example, around programming. Can get you those numbers.

But additional funding did go to NYSERDA, which stood up for example, these daily operational calls throughout the summer to make sure between Knicks parade, Sail Forth 250th, visit of President, you name it, everything went smoothly. And we're very proud of the results there. The note on PD overtime. So the World Cup was obviously a massive initiative and it stretched across multiple agencies, multiple levels of government, and multiple fiscal years.

It also overlapped with the Knicks championship, Sail Forth 250th parade, a historic wedding, which sadly I was not invited to, and other regular summer programming. And so the city is basically still assessing the overall cost of the World Cup itself, and it is somewhat difficult to disaggregate. But with specific questions about NYPD overtime, would encourage you to reach out directly to the agency on that.

Great. And that, that is something we'll be following up on. I'm very curious what I think it was $50 million towards NYPD, but overtime, what percentage of that is going to be due to overtime and what percent of that is attributed to the CUP? The revenue numbers— the revenue number reported was $4 point— or sorry, $414 million for both city and state taxes.

So I'm just curious, The council finance team estimated that city tax revenue is roughly $60 million, and in an estimate from the comptroller's office, it was $55 million. So again, just trying to balance the two sides and make sure we've got the full sense of the return on investment here. And if not today, when can we expect the final analysis?

Thank you for the question, Councilmember. I can provide a comment on the So, the first number you mentioned, the roughly $414 million in state and local tax revenue, so that was based off of the tourism economics analysis that was done for the region. So, that includes not just New York City, but New York State, New Jersey, et cetera.

And it's not disaggregated. It is also largely an estimated number as well. So, the inputs that I mentioned before, timesing the amount of spend by For lodging, for example, for beds tax and sales tax is how they came up with that number. So it's not actual receipts in, it's an estimation. Do we have a more granular sense of what percent of that is going to New York City taxes?

After a harrowing budget negotiation last year, we have to, have to be detailed on these types of things, so just asking. Yes, specifically to tourism economics, estimate of tax revenue. That number has not been provided yet, but we will be getting it. But I do want to emphasize that is an estimated number. It is not an actual number based off of city receipts.

And do you have any comment on the comptroller's analysis, which placed this at $55 million and would mean that there was a loss of about $30 million in spend to revenue generated? So I'll note that this event stretched across multiple agencies, multiple levels of government, and multiple fiscal years. So we're still evaluating both the total cost of the event as well as the projected revenue.

Estimating revenues is complex, and there is a lag in data collection. And so we do not have enough info to estimate the World Cup's impact in sales tax collection in that level of detail at this moment. moment. However, we are assessing the costs and can definitely continue to be in conversation about that as, as we complete the analysis.

And do we have a sense of when that would be, at the end of the fiscal year, or— I will get back to you on timeline on that.

One question for EDC. You mentioned that there's a long-tail impact of discussions that kicked off during the Cup with businesses. If you can speak to a few of those examples and what you expect to come of them. Yeah, thank you for the question, Councilmember. I would say more broadly, when thinking about the World Cup, in many ways it was an investment for the city for long-term returns, and that can come in many different ways— more tourists down the road, more large-scale events like this down the road, and yes, to your question, more businesses.

So we at EDC have a program called Choose NYC, and that works with— it works to accomplish 3 things. One is to brand New York City as open for business and to gain a pipeline of businesses who are considering coming to New York City or expanding within New York City. And then once we have a qualified lead, we then work with that business to help connect them to resources and answer questions to get them to say yes to New York City and open an office here, hire New Yorkers, etc.

We typically host the Choose NYC Summit, which is our flagship event, at a different time of the year. We purposely had it during the World Cup because we knew there was going to be a lot of businesses in town. There were 350 attendees to the Choose NYC Summit. 150 of them roughly were businesses who are considering expanding within New York City or to New York City from 34 countries around the world.

And so we keep track of all those conversations as part of a broader effort of Choose NYC, and those conversations continue. To provide some context, kind of the decision timeline for a business considering coming to New York can really vary. There are some that may take 2 years to decide and could be shorter than that. But this was really kind of a beachhead moment for us to get more businesses aware of the opportunities in New York City, what resources resources are there, and in hopes down the road they will open an office here.

After the summer of the Knicks, I feel like that's a good sales pitch to end the Cup to get them— those businesses to move. Similarly, for NYC tourism, how do we as a city plan to capitalize on the momentum from the Cup where we had a lot of international travelers, particularly in the context of broad concerns about international travel, particularly from Canada.

So how, how are we going to keep moving the ball forward for NYC tourism? Yeah, thank you for the question. The first piece is the million dollars that we spent on the programmatic media that I mentioned earlier. The byproduct of that is a pool of data that we can then retarget. So the folks that saw our media, we can then retarget for the future.

So for the next 1 to 2 years, We're going to continue targeting those folks and focusing our ads on them because they already showed interest in New York City. So whether they came or they just showed interest in the creative, that's a longer tail for that investment that we will leverage for the next 1 to 2 years.

I would also say the organic content that happened on social media from visitors, we did not plant them. We did not pay for it, but I'm sure you all saw saw not just in New York, but for all the US host cities, an incredibly positive wave of emotion toward the surprising experiences they had here and how friendly people were and how great the food was, et cetera.

So we will have a new campaign launching in November that leverages that positivity and energy. We want to tap into a very unique moment that has happened here. And maybe we did not expect it going into the World Cup. We were really facing declines in international visitation across the board. So while we may have been fairly flat, we did see great intent to visit from the media and the content we produced toward the boroughs.

So we're taking that and we're going to keep moving forward with that because we saw results from the NBC and Telemundo content that we did and all of our social content. Again, we really focus on the cultural communities associated with the teams playing here. And that's where we saw our wins. There are certain geopolitical issues that we're not going to solve by marketing.

But we— because of the encouraging dispersion we saw and the awareness of our local neighborhoods, I mentioned St. George, Astoria, Mott Haven. This is what we focused on in our NBC and Telemundo content. So we know there's interest. So we're going to just continue the effort. And I think all of that got us to— and the Knicks certainly started us off.

The parade was June 18th. So it really did not overlap completely. So I think we can really attribute the energy of the World Cup and the fandom that took us away from the sort of political dialogue that was going on previously. So we, we know that travelers enjoyed their stay, and we're going to be continuing to leverage that in the next campaign.

And does NYC Tourism have the resources to implement that strategy that you just outlined? Not as much as we would like. This was a much bigger effort than we typically would undertake. I think it's very scalable. So we don't have the same level of budgets moving forward. We are very resourceful, and we look to travel partners to help us compound the investment, like airlines and tour operators.

So the more we have, the more impactful we know we can be based on the results that we, we just saw. Thank you. Councilmember, can I add one thing to my answer before that I neglected to mention? For the Choose NYC Summit and the work that we do in that work in general, we are very intentional at thinking about how do we take global economic interest in New York City and making sure that that opportunity gets spread across the 5 boroughs.

And so some of the ways that we enacted that for the Choose NYC program during the World Cup is twofold. At the summit itself, we had tabling for each of the 5 boroughs to have materials that were led by each of the 5 chambers, and it also included some participation from some of the business improvement districts. We also had a panel discussion where the 5 presidents of the chambers were also speaking to the audience about the various resources and virtues of why a business should open up in their neighborhood.

We took it a step further where the day after the conference, we organized for interested businesses a tour of different neighborhoods in New York City. And so, we took businesses and what we call lead generators. So, these are organizations that work with businesses who are making site decisions. And we brought them to the Bronx in partnership with the Bronx Chamber of Commerce.

We brought them to Long Island City with the Long Island City Partnership. We brought them to downtown Brooklyn with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. And so, those were some real ways that we are also trying to take that economic activity and bring it across the 5 boroughs. during the World Cup. Thank you.

A lot of the conversation and the analysis has focused on bringing visitors to New York and the economic impact of bringing people to the city. How did New Yorkers respond? Do we have a sense of that and their participation in these events? You have the regional number. I can go first. Excuse me. I can go first. So, from an EDC perspective, we were very intentional in using our real estate assets to bring the joy of the World Cup to communities across the city.

And so, as I mentioned before, we organized 26 events— or sorry, 28 events across the city. As an example, we worked with our public markets. Our public markets are nearly 100% small businesses that are based in New York City. Of that group, roughly 77% are minority-owned businesses, and around 46% are women-owned businesses. And so, we directly contract with a number of them to provide programming during the events, but also to have some knock-on effects where more visitors would be going to the spaces and shop there.

And in total, across our portfolio, we saw close to 7,000 New Yorkers attend those events in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Here, I'll also add— I also want to add that a lot of the initiatives that we did were also designed to target New Yorkers. And I think certainly anecdotally, also in kind of social listening, you could kind of tell that a lot of New Yorkers were exploring the city, some for the first time and some just newly.

So that was super exciting. And I think in particular, streaming matches on Link NYC kiosks throughout the city, that was designed not for like tourists who are here to visit, but for folks who are just around the city. And so we actually had amazing scenes of New Yorkers gathering in front of these Link kiosks to watch games.

We transformed over 50 blocks across the city into these soccer streets for New York City public schools, so that was of huge benefit to public school students. And then our 24/7 soccer fields, I think, was a really exciting success where, you know, we did this pilot and we were unsure whether people would want to play soccer at 4 in the morning.

And it turns out that, you know, hundreds of people want to play soccer at 4 in the morning. morning. And so, I think it was a really exciting pilot for— and, you know, and that's something that was majority taken advantage of by residents. And so, again, an example of an initiative where we sort of were using the World Cup to expand access to the beautiful game, both watching and playing.

And anecdotally, I'll just add that we know that half of our following, both for our website and our social channel, are locals. And I think some of that was through the pandemic and creating resources for that. And then the programs that we do like Restaurant Week and Broadway Week. So we know we reach locals as well. Great, thank you.

And the ferry, raft ferries too, was a fan favorite. One issue I did want to bring up as it impacted my district in Midtown East is on match days, truck deliveries were prohibited from the 30th 60th Streets for extended periods of time while the lanes on 5th and 6th Avenue were reserved for buses, shuttles, official vehicles. Do you have a sense of what the economic impact was from those restrictions, and also how were the businesses consulted before these changes were made and how far in advance?

We can get back to you on economic impact and as well as the community engagement process. process, though community outreach was done. And we ran both campaigns for kind of commuters and visitors and residents, as well as doing direct outreach to businesses. That was one pain point that I heard. The second, I think we'll hear more about, but was on permitting.

We talked about this in February, but the permitting process was a major point of contention. As it was a big challenge for some of the community groups or the bids and brands that were trying to do local activations. So learning from this experience, of course more time, but what are some of the other takeaways for future large-scale events like this?

Thank you for your question. As you said, I think more time was kind of a key one here. And so Feel really grateful to all the agencies that stepped up to do that kind of communication outward, and we were in pretty constant communication with bids and with small businesses that were interested in hosting events. I think also, you know, everything is a function in the end of resources around, you know, security and being able to spend.

And so we feel really good about folks doing both informal and formal events throughout the city. And, you know, coordination could always be improved, but definitely a lot of learnings from the process. Thank you. I want to acknowledge we were joined by Councilmember Farias, Councilmember Gutierrez, and Councilmember Aviles. And we'll now turn to my co-chair for some more questions.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Well, before we start, were we able to get those economic numbers for 2025? Sorry. For tourism? No, we'll need to come back to you with that. Okay. And I did forget one other event, 'cause we talked about, we were trying to figure out what we can attribute to World Cup. We had the World Cup starting the, what, the 11th, the parade on the 18th, 250th anniversary, and the 3-day Jay-Z concert.

So there was a lot happening in July in New York City. city. So really looking forward to those numbers. I have a question from Councilmember Gutierrez. Is the city working on any projects to maintain the excitement around soccer, particularly for youth leagues? Many were so involved in the festivities and watch parties. Plus, we have a new stadium in my district, no doubt.

Feels like maybe the World Cup czar can become the soccer czar for the city. And now you still— or just our sports czar in general. What are you doing, Maya? Career change, for sure. It's a great question. And I think we were overwhelmed, excited, and thrilled by the, honestly, at sometimes unexpected outpouring of excitement around soccer, though it should have been expected, honestly, if we're being honest.

So the answer is yes, we're continuing to have conversations. Would love to also continue to have conversations conversations with council members around what investment can look like and how we can channel that excitement.

Excellent. The city restricted— this is an SBS question— the city restricted truck deliveries in Midtown on all 8 match days, and some Midtown businesses reported being unaware of the restrictions shortly before the tournament began. How and when did SBS notify affected businesses? And did SBS receive complaints about missed deliveries, and how were those addressed? Thank you, Councilmember.

So DOT, as they were managing all of the competing logistical needs of the city, determined to proceed, and the administration determined to proceed with closures. And in the planning of the decision on the closures, we were involved in determining determining who would be reaching out to which stakeholders, and SBS was on the ground. We spoke to our Business Improvement District partners.

DOT spoke to them as well. We spoke to chambers, merchants associations, and SBS. We, we thought to also ensure that street vendors are not impacted by these delivery restrictions. So what we did is the truck deliveries are not coming to the vendors themselves, but they go to commissaries, and we intentionally made sure every single commissary necessary in the impacted area ahead of time, 2 weeks ahead of time, was aware of the restrictions that they were going to be faced so that vendors could plan for that impact in their street vending operations.

Okay. And it was mentioned that most of the— this is for NYC Tourism businesses— there was like a manual outreach. For the future, do we plan on like coordinating or a program more tech-related to kind of help alleviate some of that? Do you mean for the CUP program? Yes. I think this was the first time that we reached out beyond our member base to virtually any outlet that served a cold beverage was eligible for this program.

So it could have been street carts, bodegas. So we really did rely on associations, bids, and chambers. to help get the word out beyond our purview. I think the next time we do this, we would just definitely set up a centralized dashboard so we could see in real time, to the earlier point, and then we would ideally start earlier so that we can make up shortfalls as we see them with enough time.

Is there a way for SBS to coordinate with NYC Tourism to the businesses that are— We did, absolutely. Yes. Okay. I think we just ran out of time. Now, you— could I just add, without the dashboard, we made sure we were in neighborhoods with high concentrations of immigrant-owned businesses. We were really trying to think of 2 goals.

One, all the cultural capitals of immigrant communities in New York City that were mobilized and enthusiastic about the World Cup. So making sure those folks who we knew naturally were planning on watch parties to celebrate their countries and communities were engaged and knew how to get onto tourism's calendar, how to get onto the host committee's welcome rewards program and all of those other services.

And the other goal here was we know there was a very real perceived slowdown in many immigrant communities following the non-local law enforcement activities across the city. And so we also then targeted and made sure that the same immigrant communities that faced some slowdown because of federal threats were the same communities that were benefiting from the activities of the World Cup.

That's where, without any dashboard, we were deploying all of our outreach resources.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Now, we've heard a lot about the issues with permitting. At the end of the day, were we able to get a sense of how many applications for events during the tournament window were ultimately denied? And of those denials, which were specifically attributed to World Cup events versus traditional, as my colleagues mentioned, block parties or other annual events that communities put together?

Thank you for the question. We will— it was an unprecedented summer, so we'll have to get you— we'll have to come back to you with the data on the specifics around this summer. I'll note that annual events were prioritized, and so You know, speaking in the general sense, typical block parties, any kind of summer celebration that usually occurs, we made every effort to make sure that it could go forward and was not affected by the World Cup.

Local Laws 106, 107, and 110 of 2026 became law without the mayor's signature on June 13th, 2 days after the tournament began. Which agencies were designated to implement Local Laws 107 and 110? Were these the cultural passport and the map related? They were around the cultural passport, the map, and public bathroom expansion. Okay. I can't speak to the specifics of the agencies.

I'm not sure if anyone else here can, but we can get back to you on that. I will note that we were thrilled to be able to put forward a cultural passport in the opening days of the World Cup, and that was an amazing collaboration that enabled folks, residents and visitors, to go to the public library and get a cultural passport and then use it to collect stamps made by New York City-based artists throughout the city.

I know that public restroom expansion is in the works in partnership in some cases with City Council, and EDC is also doing some work there. And then we were very, very excited to work with NYC Tourism and the FIFA Host Committee on the digital map and calendar. And we also were able to do coordinated marketing efforts. And I really want to speak to that coordination where there was a scenario, a terrible scenario, in which everyone and their mother had a new map, right, and a different calendar, and then no one knew where to go, and half of them had these events and half of them had those.

And we were very, very excited to be able to say, this is the definitive source. We were able to do tons of outreach. We were able to direct everyone to tourism's website, work with the host committee to make sure that everything was coordinated and on that map. And it was able to show, for example, cultural enclaves. It was able to show cultural institutions, more than just events and watch parties, but also what makes the city great.

And how many events were ultimately published? 1,700. 1,700. Okay. And was the digital map of participating small businesses required by Local Law 107 ultimately published as well? The map and event calendar had lists of small businesses. Anyone that was doing a World Cup-related event, or even, I think, an event in that time period, was able to— whether or not they were a member of NYC tourism, whether or not they were affiliated with anyone, was able to put— kind of enter into their data into the system.

It was really a combination of a navigational tool and a map. It was created by a company called Neuron in collaboration with Google. So it was powered by Google Maps, but it allowed the systems to speak to each other. So if you submitted an event or offer onto our calendar, it would surface in this tool. And you could also search with real-time transportation inputs.

How long is it going to take you to get to a fan zone? How long will it take you to get to the match? Is the subway down? Is there traffic? So it was a little bit of a combination, and it was powered by AI only so that we can make sure it was translatable in 50 languages.

So it was sort of a hybrid, not strictly a map, but it did have mapping capabilities in there. But it allowed all the backend. So as we got signups for the programs for the 5 Borough Winter Special. As somebody submitted an event, it would all populate here on the back end. So it was a useful tool that was piloted during the marathon and was then recreated and expanded for the World Cup.

Okay.

Going back into preparation of our next major event, we have, as has been stated, the Olympics coming in 2028. And arguably, in my district again, we have City Field that has Mets games during that same time. USTA is preparing for U.S. Open around that time. And a host of other things. Is EDC looking at a ferry to Willets Point, considering right now the only transportation, consistent transportation in that area is the number 7 train that on a good day So I will say that we were very proud during the World Cup that the ferry was utilized as much as it was.

It's an important part of the city's overall transportation system. We had, for the month of June, we were 20% above usage than we were the June before. The system was largely at full capacity during the World Cup with terms of the number of ferries that we have available. Future planning discussions, happy to have a follow-up discussion on that.

But specific to the World Cup for this year, we were using every available ferry we had. I'll call you. At this time, I turn it over to Councilmember Velez.

Thank you, Chairs. Hello, everyone. I apologize if you've answered this question 17 times. But definitely curious to know a little bit more. You know, during this time, certainly with the incredible amount of activity that was happening, certainly we experienced quite a lot of challenges of coordination and communication, and particularly our bids kind of running into brick walls or having to do so many layers of communication when they don't— when businesses actually don't have the capacity to, like, chase so many different mapping and events listings.

Were you able to identify the revenue impacts, particularly in outer borough communities? So the information that was published earlier today that you may have saw, the $2 billion economic impact, that only looks at the, the 5 boroughs more specifically. There will be a report through Tourism Economics, who's the organization that did the analysis, that will do a further breakdown.

But that information is available at this time, but we will have— we will share that when the time comes. So it is in the report, it is broken down By zip code, or is it just— Borough. By borough. Okay. I would love— the borough is nice, but the zip codes are supremely better and clearer. And one thing that we are doing as part of that report is we are doing a survey of both small businesses and community-based organizations that will launch within the next week or so.

And that one of the qualifier information that we beginning is asking the business what zip code they're in. And so we would love to partner with you and other council members to get that survey out there so that we can get as much response as possible, because that information will of course help us understand, uh, the impact of this World Cup, but also information we could use to help inform 2028, 2031 if we get the Women's World Cup, etc.

Great. Um, I, I'd be keen to see it. Um, certainly I know there were activations of EDC even in Sunset Park, but it was very last minute. The communication was very last minute. Everyone, we kind of just said, do whatever you want to do, good luck. And the small businesses, you know, I think they definitely saw revenue increases and just were kind of on their own.

However, one feedback I did hear from a number of them were also that licensing fees were exorbitant. And so they were just like, I don't know why we would participate. And in one instance, a nonprofit got a grant to do something for FIFA with the city, and then they were denied the permit in the park to do the thing the city wanted them to do.

And we tried to troubleshoot and ultimately gave up and just moved them into a school. So the permitting thing obviously is a pain point and a real challenge given all the events that were happening at the same time. But I think it's particularly crazy when the city is actually working to do an activation and then denies the organization a permit for the thing they want them to do.

So I'd love to see the revenue impacts. And also— sorry, I'm just reading my notes and I can't quite read all of Yeah, I think in the future, obviously, the administration was also new coming into this and there was a lot of shifting. We'd love to figure out how to really better coordinate. Our communities felt like they were trying to catch up and never quite got the real attention that they needed and potentially the economic output as a result of that.

Hopefully, we will do better and learn from those lessons and get put on the front end. Thank you.

On the topic of transportation, which came up, I wanted to ask about the shuttle tickets that were sold during the tournament and if the shuttle system met EDC's ridership projections. I'll have to look into that and get back to you. I don't remember those projections. And any lessons learned from coordinating transportation between New York City, New Jersey, New Jersey Transit, MTA, Port Authority?

You had the full cast of characters, private shuttle operators. Any lessons learned that you would share for a future event? Yes, that's a great question. I actually really want to commend the host committee, New York, New Jersey. I think, you know, we all have seen the headlines of events at MetLife and what they can and have looked like in the past in terms of our ability to get people from here to there.

And by and large, we did not see that. We saw people really successfully, even amidst a Knicks Game 5 win, people got where they were going in time for kickoff and then they got home. And so, I really want to shout that out because that was not a given. And I think also want to give a lot of kudos to folks at DOT, CECM, even stretching back to like PD, FDNY, so many folks stretching back 2 to 3 years.

I think that level of coordination and professionalism over the course of several years really led to a good outcome there. So, I think lesson learned from that, frankly, is start early and, you know, continue that throughout. And we had some continuity there with the folks who who are doing that work. Aside from that, in terms of lessons learned, I do think it was really, really important that we had that coordination from City Hall because we were able to pivot, make quick decisions, and adapt to changing situations on the ground with— when, you know, when special circumstances arose.

One of the consistent themes is planning in advance. The city broadly knew we had this 4 years in advance while administrations changed, but this is something we can predict will happen in the future. What safeguards can we put in place to ensure that even if administrations change, that the city is still continuing to plan and work towards these events?

If you have any thoughts on how we could put systems in place It's a great question. I really will also defer to our friends at agencies who I think probably have an interesting perspective there. I think we really benefited from really dedicated public servants who helped with the transition and supported between administrations and kind of kept us up to date on the work that had been done and did a really smooth handoff.

So I want to express my gratitude there. And I think, again, that level of, like, professionalism of these public servants made a huge difference in this. And then again, I think that the host committee as a body was really helpful in terms of continuity and being able to continue that coordination across. And so, I want to give them that shout-out, defer to other folks on other lessons.

Well, I think for us, it does go back to funding. If we knew we had the funding to plan and begin focusing on travelers who were coming to a specific event earlier, we would have started earlier. On World Cup, as an example, we would have started probably a year in advance. We knew it was a very defined fan base who are eagerly looking for information, so we would have planned it alongside that.

As more information became available, we would have gone out with more campaigns earlier. more information on the tournament became available. So for us, I think we, again, we have a snapshot of what we know we can accomplish with the money we did have when we had it, but I think we could have had better returns on visitation and perhaps spend as well if we had gotten this money earlier and we knew we could put the thought behind it when travelers are actively planning.

And to that, to that point, do we have funding put aside for 2028? And can you speak to shifts in NYC tourism investment over the past few years, if we've been increasing it? Our budgets have been fairly flat since 2006. Our baseline was recently restored a bit, but it doesn't allow us for these kinds of campaigns. It allows us to kind of keep the lights on and do what we do internationally.

But as of now, we are not resourced for another big event. Including the 2028 event that we know of? Correct. Yes. Any other questions? I want to— both of us? Councilmember Rodriguez. Oh, yeah, thank you. Could you tell me what the budget of New York City Tourism is at this point? Currently it's $23 million. And how many staff are part of that?

About 100. We do virtually everything internally, from the development of our content, maintenance of our website. It just is a better system. It's more efficient, and it's more cost-effective. So, a lot of our sales team out in the field bringing in the meetings and events and working with the travel trade were deployed. So, it is very people-heavy, but that's typically what's required.

So, what gets sacrificed is usually the money that we spend on media. So we rely on partners to help us do that when we go out into international markets, again, like airlines and tour operators. So we're very scrappy. We do punch above our weight. But we need awareness. And that takes— that typically takes more funding. So again, very scalable.

We feel we're successful here. That success only increases with more investment. Got it. Thank you. I want to thank you all for your testimony today and also your hard work on pulling off New York's great summer, including the World Cup. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

And next, we're going to hear from the host committee. We're excited to hear from Alex Lazari. Cheer you on. Get out there. You may begin. Thank you.

Sorry, first time, don't know how this works. Good afternoon, Chairs Maloney and Thomas-Henry, members of the Committee on Economic Development and Small Business. and members of the council. Thank you for this opportunity to be here today. I'm Alex Lasry, and I serve as the CEO of the FIFA World Cup 2026 New York/New Jersey Host Committee, the local organizing committee responsible for coordinating with FIFA, government agencies, transportation, public safety partners, the private sector, and community organizations to plan and deliver our region's responsibilities as a host of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

It's been an incredible privilege to lead this organization and a team that spent years preparing New York and New Jersey to welcome the world. By every major measure we established going into the tournament, the World Cup was a tremendous success for New York and New Jersey. We safely welcomed hundreds of thousands of match attendees and millions of visitors and fans across the region.

We moved unprecedented crowds through one of the most complex transportation networks in the world. And we created free opportunities for New Yorkers to experience the tournament across all 5 boroughs and generated an estimated $3.5 billion in regional economic impact, exceeding our original projections. And those outcomes reflected the 4 key pillars that guided our work from the beginning: safety and security, transportation, fan experience, and economic impact.

Our goal was to deliver across all 4 while demonstrating once again why New York is the best city in the world to host the biggest global sporting events in the world. New York is no stranger to mega events. This is, this is a city that routinely welcomes the world for major sporting events, concerts, cultural celebrations, and global gatherings while continuing to serve more than 8 million New Yorkers every day.

But events of the scale of the World Cup do not succeed simply because they come to New York. They require years of planning, coordination, and investment. And that is why our 4 pillars were fundamentally connected. A safe, reliable, and welcoming tournament experience was essential to bringing visitors here, moving them throughout the region, and ultimately realizing the extraordinary economic opportunity that came with hosting the world's largest sporting event.

New York and New Jersey approached that responsibility as one region. We bid together, planned together, and ultimately delivered 8 matches, including the final, as a single destination. That required years of coordination among federal, state, and local governments, law enforcement agencies, transportation authorities, venue operators, FIFA, and the private sector. The results demonstrated the strength of that collaboration. More than 645,000 fans attended our 8 matches.

Approximately 98% of the spectators entered the stadium before kickoff across the tournament, and following the matches, we cleared the stadium property in under 2.5 hours, beating our pre-tournament goal of 3 hours. At the same time, our transportation network continued to serve the millions of residents who rely on it every day. But while the matches were an important part of our work, what makes the World Cup special is everything that happens beyond the stadium.

We hosted 8 matches, but the World Cup lasted 39 days. We wanted the experience throughout those 39 days to rival what was happening on the pitch, and we wanted visitors from around the world and New Yorkers alike to have the opportunity to be a part of it. We wanted the world to know that if you want to have the biggest stars on the biggest stage, you want to be in New York.

We wanted to prove that New York is still the world's capital for sports, entertainment, and tourism. That meant thinking differently about how the World Cup could show up across the city. Our original planning contemplated a single centralized Fan Fest at Liberty State Park. But as our plans evolved, we saw an opportunity to create something broader, a distributed network of fan experiences across New York and New Jersey.

In the city, that meant free public fan experiences across all 5 boroughs, bringing the tournament directly into communities and allowing New Yorkers to participate regardless of whether they held a match ticket. We also wanted to harness the creative energy that is unique to New York and give communities the ability to create their own World Cup experiences. We pursued a bottom-up strategy, helping facilitate more than 180 public viewing licenses across all 5 boroughs, so restaurants, bars, and community venues could host watch parties and become part of the tournament.

We worked with organizations including the YMCA of Greater New York City. In the community, South Bronx United, Street Soccer USA, Gotham FC, NYC FC, and the U.S. Soccer Foundation. Across the region, more than 5,000 young people participated directly in clinics, pitch days, tournaments, and other community programming. And we also expanded access to matches for community members, including New York City public public school soccer players, and hospitality workers who helped welcome visitors throughout the tournament.

That same philosophy informed our approach to small businesses. The host committee contracted with over 100 New York City vendors and spent more than $10 million with New York City-based businesses, including 36 MWBEs. Rather than create programs in isolation, we worked to amplify existing city initiatives. We integrated New York City Tourism and Convention's 5 Borough Winners Special into our World Cup Concierge and Welcome Rewards program.

The concierge developed with Google Gemini and Google Maps encouraged visitors to explore neighborhood destinations, community events, and ethnic enclaves throughout the city. Welcome World Rewards created another direct connection to local businesses with more than 1,000 participating businesses and destinations across the region, leading to over 10,000 small business visits, visits from locals and visitors alike. We also wanted part of this investment to remain long after the tournament ended.

Working with the U.S. Soccer Foundation and other partners, we invested in permanent mini pitches and soccer infrastructure, including projects in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Taken together, these efforts contributed to an extraordinary result. The World Cup generated an estimated $3.5 billion in total economic impact across the region, $2 billion of which were for New York City, exceeding our original projections.

That included $1.9 billion in direct spending, more than 27,000 jobs supported, $1.4 billion in labor income, and more than $414 million in state and local tax revenue. Every investment required to deliver our joint bid contributed to that success, from the operations necessary to stage the matches and move hundreds of thousands of people to free fan experiences, local business programs, and community investments throughout New York City.

The World Cup was a huge success for the region, but its significance extends beyond what we accomplished over those 39 days. It demonstrated that New York and New Jersey can successfully deliver an event of extraordinary global scale while creating meaningful opportunities for the people, businesses, and communities that call this region home. New York has always been where the world comes for its biggest moments.

The World Cup reaffirmed that we remain the best city in the world for major sports and entertainment events and provided a model for how we can, how we can approach the many global events that will come here next. We're incredibly proud of what we accomplished together and of the opportunities the World Cup created for New Yorkers across all 5 boroughs.

Thank you, and happy to take any questions.

Thank you for being here, and congratulations on your first hearing with the City Council. Go easy on me. One of the things that we were asking a lot of questions about before is a breakdown of the expenditures for the $20 million under contract with EDC, and if you have any details on how that money was allocated. So, um, the vast majority of the money spent from EDC was on the free Fan Festivals.

So when we pivoted from Liberty State Park to bringing the Fan Fest to New York, we really saw this as an opportunity to really, I think, do what we thought, which was make New York City, you know, kind of the center of these experiences outside of the stadium. And working with the mayor's office and creating free fan experiences all throughout New York City.

As I said, what we were really hoping to do was create an experience outside of the stadium that would rival what was happening inside. We knew that, again, the stadium's only going to fit 80,000 people. 80,000 people. So only, but the stadium's gonna fit 80,000 people, whether it's a World Cup, a Taylor Swift concert, a Super Bowl, it's gonna be the same amount of people no matter what.

What makes the World Cup so unique are the millions of people that come, not really ever expecting to get inside the tournament. And what we wanted to do was make sure that we were providing accessible and affordable spaces for people to participate in what is the world's largest sporting event. And what makes New York so unique are the spaces that it has.

And so working with the city to make sure that we were able to kind of show off the crown jewels of this city in every neighborhood. And I think we really wanted to make sure that we weren't just focused on Manhattan, but making sure that we were directing people to Staten Island, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. And when you look at, I think, the biggest Fan Fest that we put on at the US Tennis Center, bringing people to one of the biggest and well-known global international destinations for sports, bringing people to the Bronx at Bronx Terminal Market, going to Brooklyn for the Adidas Fan Fest at Brooklyn Bridge Park, and then also at Staten Island at the ballpark, doing a 4-day fan festival there.

So really trying to broaden experience, and that was what a vast majority of the funds were used for. And from those initiatives, do you know how that translated into real economic impact, and if you have those estimates or anything you could share? So as a regional bid committee, we did a regional economic impact and didn't break anything down by city or state.

We were very intentional about the fact that, again, for us being the New York/New Jersey host committee, we really viewed this as a strong New Jersey was going to lead to a strong New York, and a strong New York was going to lead to a stronger New Jersey. And so, for us, our economic impact report really was a regional impact report.

I would probably rely on the city and NYC Tourism and whoever else to put together a city-specific economic impact. So, there won't be any follow-up analysis or details? We won't do a city-specific because, again, as a regional committee, I think what we can see is the amount of people that we saw at the New York City Fan Festivals.

So, for us, what we saw, and I can get the amount of people that we had at the Fan Fests. Give me one second. I do know that at Rock Center specific, there were over a million people that went to the fan village at Rock Center. In my district. It was, you know, kind of again one of the crown jewels.

I know we had 50,000-plus people at Central Park. I think over 200,000 people at the U.S. Tennis Center for Queens. Brooklyn, I think, again, also over, I think, 200,000 people. Bronx and Staten Island, I believe, for those were in the 20,000+ people. So New York City, again, for the fan festivals outside of the stadium, a real, real big impact.

And it's, again, I think always with this is we tried to blend into what was going on with the city, right? And that's what makes makes New York unique. It's also hard for us to measure the impact of the over 100— the 180 viewing licenses that we helped secure. I think that was the most of any host city.

Just again, trying to make sure that the entire region for whoever wanted to put on a watch party was able to. And did— Transportation costs, if any of them. I think you heard my question. Did we share them with who? The question is, did FIFA or the host committee provide any resources or financial support for security at events, for NYPD overages that the city had, or attendees that were traveling to and from the events?

If you can speak a bit to the partnership there in financing the additional operational costs that came to both municipalities, but mainly I'm interested So we, we actually worked with the federal government on securing federal reimbursements for, for security for the World Cup. So overtime funding, we were able to receive upwards of $60+ million in federal reimbursements that we split across New York and New Jersey.

We are in the process of taking in all of the submissions right now and then making sure that those reimbursements get sent out. set up. So there was a $625 million aid package that was sent, that was signed, that was passed by Congress and signed by the president for the World Cup, split across all the host cities.

We took, again, what were our best projections at the time in submitting for the potential reimbursements, and we believe that You know, we are now taking in all the submissions, so there will be federal support and reimbursements for, for some of the security overtime overages that should help cover the World Cup costs. And that is roughly $30 million or so, or a little more than that?

We're still taking in all of the submissions, so I can get back to you on how the split worked. Who had access to the contract between the host committee or FIFA did in the city? That was before I started, but I believe the contract was done through the— I believe the previous administration in both New Jersey and New York City and was negotiated between those 2 administrations and FIFA, as there was, I don't believe, a host committee set up before the bid was awarded.

And have you seen the contract, the details of the contract? Yeah, I mean, I've seen the contract. And is that something you can share with the City Council and the taxpayers? I would probably leave that up to the city as it's their contract. Was there anything unique in that contract to New York? I don't think nothing that wasn't responsible for New Jersey as well.

Or relative to other, you know, other cities that were hosting FIFA? Not to my knowledge. Do you have any questions? All right, passing to my chair.

Oh, thank you, Chair. So first question, as part of— as chair of the host committee, one of The responsibilities of securing local and corporate funding for events. Sorry, what was that? Securing local and corporate funding for the events throughout the city. How was that revenue shared between FIFA and the City of New York? Any sponsorship? Any funding that we raised went to the host committee.

FIFA did their own fundraising. So anything went to the host committee. Any corporate sponsorships that we personally raised for went to us. And then where does that money go? So that went into operations as well for the World Cup. So we had an over— you know, we had a budget that we had to raise for. So we would go to corporate partners to try to raise to help fill the budget gaps.

What was the total budget? We were upwards of $200 million. And of that $200 million, $10 million was spent with local businesses? No, more than that was spent with local businesses. But again, we had to go across New York and New Jersey. Okay. Do you have an idea of what that small business or local business spend was?

I can get that for you. Okay. And do you know, and of that number, was roughly 30% of that to MWBEs? Um, I mean, it's a little bit more— I don't think it's as simple as looking at, um, how that broke out, because for a lot of these mega events, um, and kind of the big watch parties that we're putting on One, we didn't produce a lot of them, so we would hire a production company.

So for Central Park, Global Citizen would put that on. So it's a little bit more difficult for us to break out exactly how the percentages of spend there. Also, there are only so many companies that can actually put on some of those watch parties and have the resources to be able to do that. do that in such a tight timeframe.

With that being said, I don't have the percent breakdown of what was spent with MWBEs. Did we require any type of local spending or MWBE spending within those contracts? We made sure any money that was given to us by New York was spent in New York City. Okay. And how did you go about procuring— what types of goods or services were procured by the local businesses in the city?

I mean, those would have been for any of the watch parties that we put on. So making sure that— Like production equipment and— Yeah. You know, vendors at any of the watch parties. But again, for us, and I think it's important to note, we really wanted to make sure that the host committee wasn't going to be the main source of wasn't going to be the only source or even the main source of economic impact, right?

That is not what the host committees as a spender was. What we really wanted to do was plug into what was going into the city and amplify all of what the city was already doing to make sure that people who were coming here knew exactly where to go, right? So it wasn't going to be, hey, we are throwing this one big watch party.

We want as much as We wanted as many people to come as possible, and they did. We also wanted people to explore the city. So you would come to our event in Queens, but then we really wanted you to go to bars, restaurants, etc., in the neighborhood. And that was where we saw the real big economic impact.

How was the data you guys saw in terms of driving traffic to the local businesses in comparison to NYC Tourism? Was it the same data, or did you— And how did you collaborate with NYC Tourism in terms of getting folks from the fan clubs to the local businesses? And how did you collect that data? Is it the same data?

We tried our best to collect the data as best we could, but we were a small but mighty team that had a lot that we had to do. And we didn't have a team of 100 people that could also go and do data collection. So we did the best that we, that we could. I can't speak to NYC Tourism, although I know that they were an incredible partner.

And for us though, what we tried to do was if you were at our fan zones or at any of our Fan Fests, we tried to promote the ability for people to then go outside and go outside of just the fan zone that they were in and go experience other spots. If there were people who were throwing their own watch parties through our viewing license or anything.

We tried to promote that. Any of the advertising that the city or New York City Tourism was doing, we tried to promote that as well. And what tools and methods— I think I've got to— sorry, just because we started a little late, I'm going to have only like a couple more minutes. Okay, and I only have a couple more questions.

Okay, perfect. How did you go about identifying local businesses and/or MWCs We hired a consultant to help us as they— to make sure that we monitor— to monitor and help us procure MWBs. That's when we went through that. But again, we did not have a ton of procurement on that as we worked a lot with production agencies who have quite a bit of experience in that area. put on mega events before.

So like a Live Nation or a Global Citizen who have done events in the city before. Gotcha. And who's that consultant? What company? What was her company? Tiffany Townsend. Her name was Tiffany Townsend. Okay. Thank you. And my final question is your thoughts on our resolution today, which calls on FIFA to provide New York City with the $1 million legacy contribution. associated with hosting the tournament as promised?

The FIFA $1 million? Is that what you're talking about? So we did get a— we got $1 million from FIFA that was used towards mini pitches throughout New York and New Jersey. And then we also made sure that we put forth some of our own funds that we raised. So in a lot of our sponsorship deals, we made sure that we tried to add mini pitches in that.

Um, and, um, but yes, we did get the one— we got $1 million from FIFA, um, for, uh, for Legacy. So we did get the money? There was $1 million that we got from FIFA. Okay. For Club World Cup, they had then said that they were— I got it, Bruce. They were then saying that they would possibly give us another million dollars, um, which we, um, so far have not received.

And I think, again, it wasn't Tiffany Townsend. I'll get you Tiffany Stennard. Okay. Thank you. That's it for me, Chair.

Thank you so much. I know you're on a tight timeline. Thank you very much. All right. I'm now going to open up the hearing for public testimony. I remind members of the public that this is a government proceeding and that decorum should be observed at all times. As such, members of the public shall remain silent at all times.

The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify. No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the sergeant-at-arms for inclusion in the hearing record. If you wish to speak today at the hearing, please fill out an appearance card with the sergeant-at-arms and wait to be recognized.

When recognized, you will have 2 minutes to speak on today's hearing topic, assessing the impact of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. If you have a written statement or additional written testimony to submit for the record, provide a copy of that to the sergeant-at-arms. You may also email written testimony to testimony@council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of the close of the hearing.

Audio and video recordings will not be accepted. For in-person panelists, please come up to the table. We are going to start with Megan Wiley. from the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, Jessica Walker from the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, Jeffrey LeFrancois from the NYC BID Association, and Evan Sweet from the Meatpacking District BID. And the next round will be on Zoom with Vijay— Dandapan.

With Vijay Dandapan. You may begin.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Um, good afternoon, Chairs Maloney and Thomas Henry. My name is Megan Wiley, and I am the political director of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council. Council, which represents nearly 40,000 hospitality workers across New York and northern New Jersey. I'm here to speak about the vital role our city's union hotel workers played in making the 2026 World Cup a success and what that success shows about not compromising workers' rights in the name of corporate interests.

Our union hotel workers were on the front lines this summer welcoming more than 1.2 million visitors from around the world and providing the world-class service that New York is known for. It is because of that hard work and dedication that the region was able to realize a $3.3 billion economic impact, surpassing expectations by $200 million. Direct spending on accommodations amounted to more than $650 million, 20% of the total impact and nearly 40% of all direct spending.

Hotels performed outstandingly during the World Cup, and the role that our hospitality workers played in this success cannot be understated. Behind all those economic numbers were workers who served their city while securing a new contract. Our previous industry-wide agreement was set to expire after more than a decade on June 30th, right in the middle of the tournament.

Had we failed to reach an agreement, nearly 30,000 hospitality workers at more than 250 hotels across New York City were prepared to walk off the job. Our members spent years preparing for that moment, and just weeks before the first kickoff, they successfully ratified a new life-changing 8-year agreement. Over the life of that contract, average wages will increase by more than 50% while maintaining fully employer-paid family health care, and increasing pension contributions.

The agreement also provides new employer-funded housing and childcare benefits, more paid time off, stronger job protections, and other improvements to working conditions. These are historic gains for working— hardworking New Yorkers, and most significantly, New York did not have to choose between good jobs and economic growth. On top of the regulations outlined in our contract, HTC has also fought for policies that protect consumers and improve the quality of New York's hospitality industry.

The Safe Hotels Act requires hotels to train staff to identify human trafficking and meet clear health and safety standards, while rules around service disruptions and bans on junk fees help ensure guests are not misled by bad actors. These policies benefit workers, consumers, and the city's tourism economy at the same time. We did not have to lower wages, weaken labor standards, or ask workers or communities to sacrifice so that businesses could benefit from the World Cup for just a few weeks.

This summer showed that we can attract millions of visitors, generate billions, and economic activity and support a thriving tourism industry while also raising wages and strengthening standards for working people. We thank the mayor's office, the city council, and the host committee for recognizing the importance of ensuring that workers who make this type of economic activity possible can afford to live in the city, support their families, and build a future here.

We urge you to keep this model in mind for the future events like this, and we ensure that workers continue to share in the success of our economy. Thank you. Thank you. Next.

Good afternoon, Chairs. I'm Jessica Walker, President and CEO of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, representing 125,000 businesses. New York delivered this summer. $2 billion, 12,000 jobs, sports bars up 16%. Our own Placer.ai analysis found domestic visitors to Manhattan— domestic visitors— rose 8.3% during the tournament, the strongest gain of any borough. But the summer taught us 5 lessons, and each points to a fix.

First, the benefits appear to have stayed largely in the core. Washington Heights, Inwood, and East Harlem, the neighborhoods with the deepest ties to the competing nations, saw domestic visits actually fall 5 to 8%. Domestic, domestic tourists again. Mega event traffic does not spread on its own. The Fix is a funded 5-borough tourism initiative that plans spillover in advance and allows more fan zones, block parties in the neighborhood corridors for every future major event.

Second, we sent visitors to New Jersey. Airbnb's data shows 55% of guests who booked in New Jersey looked at New York City first. Hotels trailed last year for most of the tournament while affordable options were off the market. The fix is Intro 879, letting owner occupants of 1- and 2-family homes host guests, and narrowing the 2021 hotel special permit.

Third, coordination came late. Planning for the tournament straddled a mayoral transition, and business groups and bids were brought in after the key decisions on programming and promotion had been made. The fix is a standing mega event playbook with business groups at the table from day one. Fourth, visitors who wanted to keep the night going often found bars and restaurants closed early.

Boilerplate community board stipulations ban dancing and live music at ordinary restaurants and force most new venues to close by midnight on weekends, even when mega events arrive. The fix is stipulation standards and piloting the creation of 24-hour districts. Fifth, the watch parties and soccer streets proved the demand for street life, but fees of up to $66,000 a day and a street fair moratorium mean that energy disappears when the tournament ends.

The fix is a single-window sliding fee street event permit. We had the world's attention this summer, Let's use it to reclaim our title as the city that never sleeps and make sure the party reaches every neighborhood. Thank you.

Next. Good afternoon, Chair Maloney, Chair Thomas-Henry. Great to see you both again. My name is Jeffrey LeFrançois, president of the Meatpacking District BID and co-chair of the New York City BID Association, representing 78 business improvement districts across all 5 boroughs. Thanks for the opportunity to testify today. The World Cup was a success, as we have heard. It brought an influx of international visitors, domestic too, generated widespread media coverage, and boosted foot traffic and spending across commercial corridors from Harlem to Flushing and downtown Brooklyn to the South Bronx.

Given that tourism overall is down in New York City, this event came at a great time. And let's not forget to thank the Knicks for truly making it a summer of sports. as well. Bids embraced the Cup to showcase our diverse neighborhoods, encourage exploration beyond traditional tourist hubs, and demonstrate that New York is truly the world's city.

However, the citywide economic benefits could have been even broader, and that's unfortunate because we had years to plan for this global event. Many bids attempted to organize public watch parties, outdoor screenings, cultural festivals, and family programming to drive activity directly to local merchants. Unfortunately, many organizations faced severe permitting obstacles through the Street Activity Permit Office, SAPPO. Permitting timelines were uncertain and late approvals compromised planning, sponsorship, recruitment, marketing, and production.

Because many of these proposed activations were privately organized and funded, the city missed an opportunity to maximize economic return for local small businesses. The SAPPO permitting process also lost the city money. For bids that have plazas that support commercial activations, there were several instances where large-scale commercial activations chose to take their money to another host city because our city's unnecessarily slow permitting process.

In many cases, SEPU doesn't issue a permit until 24 hours before an event, which is no way to do business given the time and investment it takes to stand up a brand program or activation. That poor process has cost the city and our communities a lot of money, money that went on to be spent elsewhere. To ensure future global events deliver economic benefits across all 5 boroughs, the Bid Association recommends the city do the following: update and streamline permitting for event-related neighborhood activations, especially for organizations who have existing contracts with the city; designate an interagency coordinator to help community organizations navigate approvals; engage bids early in the event planning process, support public viewing events and cultural programming that drive spending to local businesses, and recognize neighbourhood activations as highly cost-effective tools for economic development.

Major international events are major economic engines and should benefit every neighbourhood. By making it easier for bids to activate public spaces, the city can unlock additional economic activity, empower small businesses, create jobs, and ensure the success of future major host events, which the city should certainly continue to pursue. Business improvement districts stand ready to serve as key economic development partners in this effort.

Thank you.

Thank you. Great testimony. I was going to ask what we can do better, but you answered. So please submit your testimony so we can jot all of that down. And I don't know if you heard it earlier, but we did recommend to the team that they work with the BIDs, the chambers, and the like, and hotels now.

Right? We know what can happen. We know what's going to happen as soon as the next 2 years from now. They should be engaging you guys now. And if they don't, please let me know. Okay. Councilmember Maloney? A plus one to my co-chair here. reforms that you talked about are— these are repeatable events, right? Like, we know this is going to happen again.

Hopefully it happens more often, right? There is a lot of benefits to having these types of large events. So making this a playbook or standing stipulations when there are large events versus having to reinvent the wheel every time. I thank you for all of the recommendations. I did want to ask HTC one question around the pressures of the World Cup affecting a massive contract negotiation that fell right in the middle?

And if you can speak to the challenges or the— Thank you. I think for one, communication between electeds like yourself and people who represented our members was really important. You know, it wasn't something we took lightly. And I think our members really wanted to be on the front lines and were excited. They loved getting to participate in the World Cup. up and just being able to know that they had the wages to actually afford to live in the city that they were helping welcome people to.

You know, we did a lot of surveys prior to these contract negotiations. 50% were spending more than half of their monthly income on housing. Almost a third had fallen behind on their mortgage payment, rent or mortgage payments. 38% struggled to afford everyday expenses. And also 40% of members polled didn't have enough saved to cover a $400 expense.

You know, especially during a time where there was billions of dollars on the line coming to the city, we felt along with many other groups and electeds like yourselves that this money shouldn't just disappear when the last kickoff happens. I'm bad at sports metaphors because I I don't know sports well, but I'm pretty sure that makes sense.

You seem to be doing a good job to me. Thank you. But, you know, it was really crucial that, like, the money not only stayed in the city, as you guys are mentioning repeatedly, but also stayed with the workers, and not just the hotel workers, but the other workers in the hospitality industry and service industry that made this happen. future events like this happen as well.

Great, thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

Now we're moving online to Vijay Dandapani, if you're still here. Great, we— I see you. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Maloney and Chair Thomas Henry. I'm Vijay Dandapani, President and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City. Testifying on behalf of Hannek, also known as Hotel Associates New York City, regarding the impact of FIFA on the hotel industry in New York City.

At the start of the World Cup series, hotel bookings and revenues were significantly behind the initial projections from the city— for the city. And in response, Hannek launched a $500,000 ad campaign on a website called Save NYC Hotels. The goal of this campaign was to spread the word about the current state of the New York hotel industry.

And make clear the city's ability to fully capitalize on the economic benefits of the World Cup depended on its success in attracting visitors to the city's hotels. In the end, favorable entry processes for the final countries, visa-free travel for Spain and rapid visa processing for Argentina, drove a sudden late-stage influx in the last weekend, and the tournament finally— tournament's final match between Spain and Argentina produced an additional $74 million in hotel revenue.

As demonstrated by that example involved— involving visas for Spanish and Argentine visitors, tourism in the city is closely tied to actions taken by the Trump administration. The added profits from the World Cup is not enough to sustain the industry as a whole, and bookings for the rest of the year trail compared to the record tourism year of 2019, when the city saw 66.6 million tourist arrivals.

The war in Iran has contributed to an additional 10 to 15% decline in business at New York City hotels, particularly among international travelers, and particularly from Canada and Germany, who spend an average of 4 times more than domestic travelers. Additionally, the United States' ongoing tariff dispute with Canada has contributed to a decline in Canadian visitors to New York City.

These ongoing measures threaten 388,000 tourism jobs. Supported by the hotel industry, including the $79 billion in economic activity it generates and the $6.8 billion in annual tax revenue it provides for the city's agencies. Therefore, HANEC calls on the council to examine the impact of federal policies and actions on New York City's tourism industry, including the city's ability to fully capitalize on major events such as the World Cup.

We also believe the city should prioritize efforts to attract visitors, particularly international travelers, and clearly distinguish New York City as a welcoming destination from federal policies that may discourage international tourism. We look forward to continuing our productive partnership with the council, including Chair Maloney and Chair Thomas Henry, and greatly appreciate the council's willingness to engage with the industry and work collaboratively to address these challenges.

Thank you again for your attention to this matter and for the opportunity to testify before you today.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions? I don't have any. All right, thank you all for coming to this hearing. This was a very thoughtful and detailed recap of the 2026 World Cup. Anything else? All right, I guess we now— hearing is adjourned. Thank you.