Kylian Mbappe exercising inside the gym at Ciudad Real Madrid on May 06, 2026 in Madrid, Spain.
Antonio Villalba | Real Madrid | Getty Images
France has emerged as a clear fan favorite for this year’s FIFA World Cup in North America, according to a Bank of America survey — but Microsoft’s Copilot artificial intelligence tool is backing another champion.
Roughly 40% of fans surveyed by BofA are betting on another World Cup win for Les Bleus this summer, with France and Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappé expected to be the “golden boot” winner as the tournament’s top scorer.
However, AI says Spain’s La Roja are equally likely to lift the trophy.
This year’s World Cup, jointly hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, is expected to be the biggest ever, with an estimated 6.5 million fans set to attend the 104 matches across 16 host cities.
The global sporting event is forecasted to generate over $80 billion in global output, add nearly $41 billion to global GDP, and support over 800,000 jobs, according to a FIFA-WTO study.
The tournament kicks off on June 11 and will feature 48 teams, including first-time participants Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan.
Competing teams will share prize money totaling $871 million, or at least $12.5 million each, FIFA announced last week. The higher payout includes increased preparation and qualification fees to help cover costs such as travel and training, particularly benefiting smaller teams.
Preparation payments will rise to $2.5 million from $1.5 million at the 2022 World Cup, while qualification payments increase to $10 million from $9 million.
This comes as controversy unfolds over FIFA’s new “dynamic” ticket pricing system.
CNBC previously reported ticket prices ranging from $380 for a Category 2 group-stage match between Curaçao and Côte d’Ivoire in Philadelphia to $4,105 for a Category 1 seat at a U.S.-Paraguay game in Los Angeles. On FIFA’s official ticket reselling platform, one ticket was even listed at $11.5 million.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino previously told CNBC that it had garnered around 508 million requests for only seven million tickets on offer across the tournament’s matches.
“Ticket pricing is always a sensitive topic for mega-events of this scale,” Ricardo Fort, founder of sport consultancy Fort Consulting, said at the time. “There will always be segments of fans who feel priced out, especially for premium matches.”
