From local tournaments to global championships, major sporting events face an increasingly complex threat landscape. Security teams must protect people, venues, brands, and operations while delivering a safe and seamless fan experience.
In this edition of the Liferaft Security Spotlight Session series, Jenn Turnbull sits down with John Mulligan, Senior Advisor for Intelligence at Rebel Global Security, to discuss lessons learned from supporting major international sporting events and the role of intelligence, technology, and threat monitoring in modern event security.
Listen now: Strategies for Securing Major Sporting Events
What you'll learn
What makes securing major sporting events uniquely challenging?
Major sporting events concentrate large crowds, high-profile participants, valuable brands, and intense media attention into fixed venues and tight timeframes. That combination creates a broad attack surface: physical security at stadiums and transit hubs, crowd and traffic management, protection of athletes and VIPs, cyber and brand threats, and reputational risk all have to be managed at once. Many events also span multiple venues, cities, and even countries, which multiplies the number of agencies, private operators, and legal jurisdictions that must coordinate around a single operation.
Why intelligence and OSINT matter before game day
Effective event security begins long before kickoff. Intelligence and open-source intelligence (OSINT) allow teams to map the threat landscape during the planning phase, identifying credible risks, monitoring chatter across social and fringe platforms, and establishing a baseline so anomalies stand out in real time. The goal is to move from reactive response to proactive mitigation: detecting concerning signals early, escalating them through a consistent process, and informing decisions about staffing, access control, and contingency planning before the first fan arrives. Continuous monitoring through the event then supports rapid, informed response if conditions change.
What the FIFA World Cup 2026 means for event security
The scale of upcoming events underscores why these capabilities matter. The FIFA World Cup 2026 is the largest in the tournament's history, expanding from 32 to 48 teams and 104 matches played across 16 stadiums in 16 host cities, 11 in the United States, 3 in Mexico, and 2 in Canada, from June 11 to July 19, 2026. It is the first World Cup jointly hosted by three countries, and at 39 days it is the longest ever. For security teams, that means coordinating across national borders, dozens of jurisdictions, and an extended operating window, a planning challenge that rewards strong intelligence, interoperable technology, and well-rehearsed escalation workflows.
Frequently asked questions
What are the biggest security risks at major sporting events?
Risks span physical threats at venues and transit points, crowd and traffic management, protection of athletes and VIPs, cyber and brand threats, and reputational harm, often across multiple venues and jurisdictions simultaneously.
How does OSINT support event security?
Open-source intelligence helps teams map the threat landscape during planning, monitor relevant chatter across social and emerging platforms, and detect early-warning signals so concerns can be assessed and escalated before they become incidents.
Why is the FIFA World Cup 2026 a significant security undertaking?
It is the largest and longest World Cup ever, 48 teams and 104 matches across 16 cities in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, making cross-border coordination, technology interoperability, and sustained monitoring essential.
How do security teams balance safety with fan experience?
The aim is layered, intelligence-led security that mitigates risk while keeping entry, movement, and the overall experience as smooth as possible, so safety measures protect rather than detract from the event.
At Liferaft, we turn open-source threat signals into credible, actionable intelligence so teams can move quickly from awareness to confident action.
We turn open-source threat signals into credible, actionable intelligence so teams can move quickly from awareness to confident action.
