By OWEN CAMEROS
Everything about the 2026 World Cup is bigger and different, and the stadium in Toronto is no exception.
Upgrades to the home of Toronto FC of the MLS and the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts were a part of $100-million renovation project that includes an additional 17,000 temporary seats.
“The upgrades completed, including temporary seating and permanent legacy enhancements, will make attending a match at Toronto Stadium an unparalleled experience,” Sharon Bollenbach, the executive director of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Toronto Secretariat, said in a statement.
Toronto Stadium is better known as BMO Field but has been renamed during the World Cup due to sponsorship deals under FIFA naming rules.
Early reviews of the renovations, which brought the capacity to the FIFA minimum of 45,000, have been favorable.
On May 9, Toronto FC opened the temporary stands to fans for a match against Lionel Messi and Inter Miami. The match drew a venue-record crowd of more than 44,000.
“I was definitely apprehensive about the safety of the setup,” said JohnPaul Agius, who sat in the temporary seats with his family for the match. “I had seen pictures of it being built and the immediate comparison with the Rogers Stadium at Downsview” — a local temporary concert venue — “and all the complaints about it, definitely gave me a preconceived notion that they would be unsafe.”
However, Agius said the seats were much better than he expected.
“That was the most surprising thing, the seats felt incredibly sturdy and safe, there was no perceivable movement whatsoever,” he said. “The view was fantastic. I loved sitting there.”
The match also served as a test run for the World Cup. Toronto Stadium will host six matches, the first of which is Canada’s opener against Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday.
This is not the first time the stadium has undergone a temporary expansion. In 2016, the stadium added 6,000 seats to host the Grey Cup — the CFL’s championship — the MLS Cup and the NHL Centennial Classic.
The seating is similar to the one used in 2016, with improved technology, said a spokesperson for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which announced the renovations and costs in March.
“I think they will do exactly what they’re intended to do, which is accommodate passionate fans from all over the world in a safe manner,” said Luis Miguel, who sat in the north stands for the Inter Miami match. “I believe a lot of the issues are just people online creating panic.”
Temporary seating has been used at previous World Cups. In 2018, Russia’s Ekaterinburg Arena added 12,000 seats outside the stadium’s original footprint to reach the then-minimum of 35,000 seats.
The scaffolding-supported sections behind each goal in Toronto mirror the stands at Ekaterinburg, which hosted four group-stage matches.
The Toronto Stadium renovations are part of a larger project to get the 16 stadiums ready to host the five-week-long tournament.
In the United States, multiple NFL stadiums underwent renovations to meet FIFA regulations.
Seven U.S. venues with artificial turf laid natural grass on top. Other stadiums, such as MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, have removed seats to accommodate wider fields.
Despite the extensive remodel, Agius says the renovations should not diminish the excitement at matches in Toronto.
“It probably will have the best atmosphere of any stadium because of the stadium structure resembling more of an English-style stadium. It’s very intimate, and that extended to the new seating,” Agius said. “The atmosphere will be electric, and no one will notice that they are sitting in temporary stands.”
Owen Cameros is a student in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.
AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup