First, the economics. Each competing nation at this year’s Copa America will receive $4 million, with prize money on top of that of up to $10 million for the winner. The last Copa America in 2019 earned $118 million in revenue. Everything else is set against that. That income and earning potential is why everything else is happening.
This year’s Copa America, postponed from 2020 because of COVID-19, was supposed to be taking place in Colombia and Argentina. First Colombia pulled out because of civil unrest there. Then over the weekend, CONMEBOL, South America's governing body, decided that, with a new wave of COVID-19 raging and an average of more than 30,000 new cases a day, Argentina could no longer safely host the tournament.