Teams like Jordan — making their historic World Cup debut — and Turkey are set to play in Santa Clara, but their supporters are running into a brick wall at U.S. embassies. Visa processing in key countries has slowed to a crawl or stopped entirely, thanks in part to geopolitical tensions and embassy closures. The result? A World Cup stadium that could end up with conspicuously empty sections where passionate international supporters should be.

This is a self-inflicted wound, and it's worth being blunt about it. You don't bid to host the world's biggest sporting event and then make it nearly impossible for the world to show up. Whatever your stance on immigration policy broadly, tourist visas for a month-long sporting event are not the hill to die on. These are visitors who want to come here, spend money, fill hotel rooms, eat at restaurants, and go home. That's the entire point.

And even for fans who can get here, the price tag is doing its own gatekeeping. As one Bay Area resident put it: "If FIFA decides to sell the tickets for $100 a piece, I'll take 4 for any game just because I've never been to a World Cup game. Beyond that they can keep their tickets." Another local was more succinct: "The outrageous ticket prices surely don't help."

They're not wrong. Between visa bureaucracy keeping international fans out and FIFA pricing keeping local fans out, the Bay Area's big World Cup moment risks becoming a very expensive ghost town — a stadium full of corporate seats and travel influencers instead of the electric, chaotic atmosphere that makes the tournament worth hosting in the first place.

The economic projections everyone keeps citing assume packed stadiums and bustling streets. If the federal government can't streamline visa processing for a tournament it actively lobbied to host, and FIFA won't price tickets for actual humans, those projections are fantasy. The Bay Area deserves better than a "bonanza" that exists only on paper.