Seattle’s World Cup run is over, and organizations that maintain monitor of visitation and resort income say the international match broke some information.
Over about three weeks, the town hosted six matches that introduced guests from international locations together with Egypt, Iran, Senegal and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The United States match against Australia on Juneteenth attracted the most important crowd.
The Downtown Seattle Association stated that’s when greater than 580,000 individuals visited the realm, making it the busiest day on document. That day, greater than 28,000 individuals went to Pioneer Square’s Occidental Park, and round 9,000 individuals had been in Westlake Park to observe the match.
Data from Visit Seattle, a nonprofit that promotes tourism for the town, exhibits that inns broke income information by 40%. The earlier document was set in 2023 when Taylor Swift performed at Lumen Field on her Eras Tour.
Kelly Saling, the nonprofit’s government vice chairman, stated Seattle launched itself to a complete new viewers that she hopes will unfold the phrase about their keep right here.
“Those tales and experiences is what’s going to drive visitation sooner or later to our vacation spot,” she stated. “They will visit our downtown, our neighborhoods, our hotels, attractions, and small businesses for years to come.”
The July 19 record may be short-lived; Saling said the U.S. match against Belgium on July 6 will likely topple those records, though they are still gathering data.
Not all of the city benefitted from being so close to the action. Some business owners near the stadium in the city’s Chinatown International District say that World Cup excitement didn’t reach them and, in some cases, actually hurt their sales.
Leaders with the CID Business Improvement Area put together a last minute watch party for the U.S. match against Beligum on July 6. Local organizers for the World Cup helped with that effort and said around 2,500 people showed up to watch the match.
The Seattle Sports Commission, a nonprofit that works to attract sport teams and events to the city, wants to use this momentum to bring more international sporting events. The organization hopes this global attention can help them win bids to host events such as the Men’s and Women’s Rugby World Cup and the Women’s World Cup in 2031, and potentially becoming a site for the Olympic and Paralympic torch relay in 2028.
The nonprofit’s president, Beth Knox, said the World Cup demonstrated that the region can handle hosting events like these.
“So we’re looking at all these kinds of events, and there’s a number of ones that are small and midsize that we are bringing into the consideration,” she stated. “Those are simply as vital in order that we now have a steadiness of small- to mid-size to giant, mega occasions.”
Peter Tomozawa, the chief government officer for the town’s FIFA World Cup Local Organizing Committee, stated he hopes the six matches allowed vacationers to find the town, and for locals to rediscover it.
The native organizing committee labored with the town of Seattle, the Puyallup Tribe, different native governments and companies to ship 1,400 youngsters to a World Cup match. Not all went based on plan; the SeaTac-based nonprofit African Youth Sports Academy returned 20 tickets after the U.S. denied a Somali referee entrance to the nation.
Other organizations nonetheless participated. Tomozawa stated he spoke with mother and father and children about their expertise, and one 14-year-old boy’s reply stunned him.
“I expected him to talk about what he saw on the field,” Tomozawa stated. Instead, “He said, ‘I have never seen so many people happy. I’ve never seen Seattle this happy.’ I was, like, man, we nailed it.”