Monica Paul is on the last leg of a 16-year marathon as the final countdown to the 2026 FIFA World Cup has begun.
The 50-year-old executive director of the Dallas Sports Commission crafted the region’s winning FIFA bid in what seems like eons ago. Now, she’s busy working on zillions of details before the first early-round game takes place at AT&T Stadium on June 14.
She’s spinning plates while having great fun.
All told, Dallas will host nine matches, including four knock-out games and one semifinal — more than any of the other 15 North American host cities.
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“The World Cup is the largest sporting event in the world, so it was a must-have in my book for Dallas,” Paul said in a recent interview at her Sports Commission office in Fair Park.
Dallas hosted the men’s World Cup in 1994, when six games were played at Cotton Bowl stadium. “So it was never if we were going to bid on it, but how are we going to make it happen?” she said.
Arlington’s iconic AT&T Stadium will become Dallas Stadium during the games. FIFA always keeps the venue names simple without sponsorships.
These days, Paul jockeys between her cramped sports commission basement office at Fair Park and her sparse World Cup office in Founders Square near the convention center — not that she spends much time in either of them. “Hey, we’re a nonprofit, and it works for us.”
North Texas was the largest metropolitan area in the country without a sports commission until Paul created one in 2014 to go after the NCAA Women’s Final Four in 2017 at AT&T Stadium. She pulled that off to rave reviews.
Paul and her staff of about a dozen scope out promising events. She goes after those prospects with the fierce competitiveness needed to succeed in this industry.
And she’s very, very successful.
Monica Paul, executive director of the Dallas Sports Commission poses for a portrait at her office in Dallas in June.
Nathan Hunsinger / Special Contributor
Not a spotlight hog
Paul is described by her multitude of fans as a humble leader who knows what needs to be done, works incredibly hard, earns trust and doesn’t put herself at the center of the spotlight.
“Monica’s the glue that brings everybody together,” said Dan Hunt, president and co-owner of FC Dallas. “There’s a reason why we’ve had more big events with her serving in control than any other city in the United States.”
Or as Greg Bibb, CEO and managing partner of the WNBA’s Dallas Wings, puts it: “Monica’s superpower is her ability to connect people of all different backgrounds and interests so that they understand the common good of that initiative.
“Whether she’s talking to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a volunteer at an event, she gets immediate buy-in from them.”
Bibb was introduced to Paul’s aplomb in 2017, when he was founder and owner of Capital Sports Ventures and needed her help in getting 20 miles of city road closed off for his Dallas Bike Ride, a large-scale, public, traffic-free bike ride that ran through the center of downtown.
“There are a lot of ingredients that make Dallas and North Texas the leading sports market for business in the country,” Bibb said. “But the most important ingredient is Monica.”
The World Cup has consumed most of Paul’s professional life of late, but she’s also juggled, pursued and kept Dallas at the forefront for many other sporting holy grails. She’s already reeled in the 2030 NCAA Men’s Final Four and the 2031 NCAA Women’s Final Four.
Paul is in hot pursuit of the 2031 Men’s Rugby World Cup and the Women’s 2033 Rugby World Cup, and she’s building a war chest to grab a dominant share of the 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup, with the tournament final as the ultimate goal.
That’s why it’s imperative that things go off without a serious glitch next year.
Smooth operator, mostly
Paul is cool under pressure. She’ll never let you see her sweat.
That said, Paul admits to a “high-anxiety attack” three years ago as she stood in the predawn hours at AT&T Discovery District downtown waiting for FIFA to announce its 2026 World Cup host cities.
She fully expected Dallas to be among them.
And why not?
Paul had marshaled support from the entire family of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, AT&T Stadium, Dan Hunt and his older brother, Clark Hunt, the other local sports owners, as well as leading sports heroes, and business and civic luminaries throughout North Texas.
But when Paul looked on her iPhone at FIFA’s North American online map, Dallas was nowhere to be found.
“My heart just dropped, and I thought, ‘This just can’t be possible. How could I have possibly screwed this up so badly that Dallas is not going to be chosen as a host city?’” Paul recalled. “At this point, we’d been working on World Cup for about five years, and those five years flashed through my mind. ‘Is somebody playing a joke?’”
Her palpitations were quelled when FIFA reloaded its map showing North Texas among its 16 North American host cities.
Fast-forward to Feb, 4, 2024, when Paul, Hunt, Jones and a who’s who entourage were at a large reveal party at AT&T’s Stadium Club waiting to hear just what kind of bounty Dallas had hauled in for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Athletes Dirk Nowitzki, Marty Turco, Emmitt Smith and Paxton Pomykal, along with the mayors of Dallas, Arlington and Frisco were there waiting for FIFA’s Sunday evening broadcast.
Encouraging rumors had North Texas getting five, six and maybe even seven games if it was lucky.
Paul, Jones and Hunt were seated front-and-center when the screens showed that Dallas had far exceeded anyone’s expectations with nine games. They gave Paul a standing ovation.
That news was just the beginning.
It’s not just the nine games that stretch from June 15 to July 14. FIFA is designating the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center as its international broadcast center, where media outlets and the world’s broadcast studios will set up shop for the whole tournament.
An undetermined number of teams will set up North Texas base camps.
All will spend money on lodging, transportation and entertainment.
“I keep hearing that the economic impact could be worth north of $2 billion — maybe much more when the experts make their final calculations,” Hunt said. “The metroplex is truly the epicenter of World Cup 2026. That’s not debatable.”
None of this happens without Paul, he said.
Hunt recently looked at his personal calendar for June and July 2026. “It was the coolest thing. Every few days, I saw a Dallas World Cup game come up.”
Monica Paul, president of the North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee, looks on Fernando Martinez (left) and Daniel Doucette of Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages make a ceremonial donation of soccer balls during a press conference to provide updates with one year until FIFA World Cup 2026 kicks off on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, in Frisco.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
Booted from HS honor society
Paul’s life has been a magical mystery tour of — among many other things — playing college volleyball, being a delegate of USA Women’s National Olympic Volleyball, overseeing international events for both the men’s and women’s national volleyball teams, putting on the National Senior Games and helping save USA Taekwondo from Olympic decertification and financial ruin.
In the meantime, she finished her physical education degree and earned a master’s degree in sports administration.
The middle-school girl who thought her school trip to Washington, D.C., was a big deal has been to 27 countries. She hasn’t been to Antarctica or Africa. She’d love to get to Africa but will take a pass on Antarctica. “That might be too cold for me,” she said.
Paul delights in retelling how she was kicked off the National Honor Society at Caldwell High School because she wrote an English paper for another student for $30.
Her punchline is that her classmate got a higher grade than she did.
Paul grew up as a tomboy on her family’s farm. She was hell on four-wheelers and dirt bikes and rode tractors with her grandfather. She played basketball, golfed and threw shot put and discus before zeroing in on volleyball.
Tomboy Monica Paul on her grandfather’s tractor at the family’s farm in Caldwell, Texas.
Courtesy Monica Paul
She hated dresses and cried when her grandmother gave her one for Christmas.
The high school valedictorian went to the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, a private Christian college in the central corridor of Texas, on a full-ride academic scholarship — choosing it over one offered for volleyball.
Her playing days ended when she tore her ACL her freshman year, and she decided to transfer. “The 11-o’clock curfew just didn’t fit what I was expecting my college experience to be.”
Transferring to the University of Texas at Austin was a gamechanger.
Just before Paul’s senior year as a physical education major, she spotted an ad in The Daily Texan for a volleyball team manager under UT’s legendary head coach Mick Haley.
Haley was offered the top coaching position of the USA Women’s National Volleyball Team in 1997 ahead of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. He asked Paul and an assistant coach to join him at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs the next May.
“I hadn’t finished my degree but knew that this was a once-in-a lifetime opportunity and that there were people who were way more qualified than me,” she said. “Hopefully, I’d shown my work ethic and initiative. And I’m like, ‘Yep, I’ll take it.’”
Team USA wasn’t expected to make it out of the first round of the competition, but it finished a surprisingly close fourth — just shy of a bronze medal. “It taught me, ‘Don’t ever count yourself out.’ It was amazing to see the team gel at the right time.”
Directing competitions for the 2007 National Senior Games in Louisville, Ky., was among her most personally gratifying experiences. “We had 14,000 athletes — including a 102-year-old bowler and table tennis player — in 18 sports at 36 different venues over 16 days.”
Over the years, Paul’s been asked many unusual questions, but none like the one posed by a tennis player in the oldest age group. She needed to know the exact distance from the tennis courts to the nearest restroom.
Friends in high places
Kellie Fischer, CFO of the Texas Rangers for 20 years, said Paul navigates among the most powerful businesspeople in the area as well as decision-makers both internationally and locally.
“The key players have always enjoyed camaraderie,” she said. “But Monica has been a significant part of bringing sports owners to the table when joint efforts were needed for special events like the World Cup.”
That’s no small feat. At last count, North Texas has 14 professional sports teams, including the new-to-the-scene Dallas Trinity FC, a women’s soccer team.
Paul found a steadfast ally in Charlotte Jones, chief brand officer and co-owner of the Dallas Cowboys, 11 years ago when they crafted the successful bid for the NCAA Women’s Final Four in 2017 at AT&T Stadium.
“Leader. Teammate. Friend. All of these apply to Monica, and we’re so fortunate to have her on our side,” Jones said recently. “We wouldn’t have the World Cup and many other events without her tireless effort. She approaches everything with an energy and competitive fire that’s contagious, and you can always tell that her heart and love for Dallas are in it, too.”
Gina Miller, vice president of broadcasting, media and communications for FC Dallas, has seen Paul’s overarching impact up close and personal.
“She brings cohesive vision to the D-FW sports market that motivates all of us to pursue world-class events and produce at the highest level,” Miller said. “Her leadership isn’t just strategic. It’s also deeply supportive, and that makes a real difference in how we collaborate and succeed as a region.”
Paul says that’s because she and her team understand the role at hand.
“We’re not trying to run a professional team. We’re not trying to run a venue. We’re trying to bring in sporting events that generate economic impact and position Dallas and the D-FW region on a national and international stage,” she said. “I’m not going to step on toes.”
Three texts, then a phone call
Dan Hunt is a very, very busy guy. The family-first co-owner of both FC Dallas and the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs also has numerous business and philanthropic interests. But he says his jam-packed calendar doesn’t hold a candle to Paul’s.
“Monica is one of the busiest human beings that I’ve ever known,” Hunt said. “Her attention to detail is amazing. She takes the most copious notes that become like this gigantic checklist that she and her staff systematically execute.”
People in her close orbit quickly respond to her texts and phone calls, but she can’t always reciprocate.
Hunt has a three-text rule for reaching her. “Monica gets grace through three text messages, and then I call her because she’s just so busy.”
Paul is slightly sleep deprived, getting about five hours a night with her beloved dachshunds, Stella and Rosa. “They allow me to share their bed with them.”
She tries hard to carve out time for friends. She celebrated her recent Big 5-0 with pals on an island off the coast of Cancun, and has weekly adult beverages on her patio in Addison. But she doesn’t get to her Cedar Creek lake house to kick back and party as often as she’d like.
“Maybe it’s both a strength and a detriment,” she said, “but I have a great work ethic to the point where work sometimes gets prioritized over personal health, family and friends. I have a hard time saying no to people. I don’t want to disappoint them.”
True, Hunt says.
“There are a lot of conversations when we’re about to add to her to-do list and she says to me, ‘Please don’t do this to me’ with a grin on her face, and then she makes it happen. She’s a remarkable asset for this community.”
Monica Paul in Frisco in June.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
Meet Monica Paul
Title: Executive director, Dallas Sports Commission; president of the North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee
Age: 50
Resides: Addison
Born: Caldwell, Texas
What she does: Crafts bids and marketing programs to attract sports competitions and events — including Olympic, professional, collegiate and amateur sports; works closely with professional leagues, the NCAA, Olympic National governing bodies and amateur sports federations
Education: Caldwell High School, valedictorian, 1993: bachelor of science in physical education, University of Texas at Austin, 1998; masters of arts in sports administration, University of Northern Colorado, 2001
Professional boards of directors: SMU Athletic Forum, Cotton Bowl Classic and Jason Witten’s SCORE Foundation
Personal: Pet mom of dachshunds Stella and Rosa
SOURCES: Dallas Sports Commission, Monica Paul