It's true that it's often the expectation, but one of the main selling points for the United 2026 bid was that they weren't going to build any stadiums.
Also, the expectation exists because it is proven that the typical World Cup match will fill just about any size stadium - within reason - but it is far from proven that the typical Women's World Cup match will fill a similar-sized stadium. In fact, what we currently know empirically based on this tournament and others, is that a few WWC matches will fill a large stadium (say, 60,000), but the vast majority will fill stadiums that already exist at lower capacities (in this tournament in particular, 20,000-ish). Obviously, this also depends heavily on the host of the tournament, and much more for the WWC than for the WC. Incidentally, I would venture to guess that 1999-levels of attendance would not necessarily happen here again due to lack of novelty, though the non-US games would have a higher attendance than similar matchups back then.
xG map for USA - Spainafter some good early pressure for 20 minutes the US just lost any capacity to break down a tenacious Spain, but the US back line cleaned up everything that came its way after an early error too pic.twitter.com/9kT6v3Q62u— Caley Graphics (@Caley_graphics) June 24, 2019 xG map for USA - France the US absorbed a ton of pressure and Naeher, Ertz, Sauerbrunn and Dahlkemper were all just about flawless against some of the best attackers in the world pic.twitter.com/hRczX3fPwn— Caley Graphics (@Caley_graphics) June 28, 2019 xG map for USA - England another oddly conservative gameplan from the US, another (at best) even game, and another 2-1 knockout win with just the final to go. pic.twitter.com/1s84pgdTkW— Caley Graphics (@Caley_graphics) July 2, 2019 If you add up the expected goal totals for the knockout games, the total comes up as 2.6 for both the US and its 3 opponents.
And of course there used to be Sepp's ego, which demanded that SA build him a palace which they didnt want or need so that he could have a private suite, a private entrance with private elevator and an Afeican themed private bathroom complete with lion and elephant decor which the Africans found offensive.
the fact that there are a lot of spineless politicians that wouldn't say no to that thing is staggering. If SA refused to that tdemand what would they do?, remove the world cup from SA?.. yeah right. Edit: thousands have died in qatar, the tournament will be moved to November and FIFA wouldn't dare to cancel that world cup even 4-5 years in advance.
Even though they have NOT ANNOUNCED where the next Women's World Cup will be and will not do so until next year, giving them a tidy three years to prepare.
The Women's World Cup in 1999 had an average attendance of 37,319 in the US. The next one in 2003 was also in the US (moved from China) and had an average attendance of 20,525. Skip to 2019 in France where the average attendance is currently 20,503 and will only go up a little bit from the last semi and the final. Is the growth of the women's game worldwide overstated (aka #fakeNews)?
The US World Cups in 1999 and 2003 were almost entirely doubleheaders--for each there were 17 ticketed events for a 32-game tournament, and the less-attractive matches could be paired with another game that was a bigger draw. This tournament is now 52 games with each game standing on its own. It is doing fine. Also for worldwide growth look at the TV numbers.
1,194,215 total in 1999 1,004,644 so far in France so it should probably end up around even. I wonder how a Women's World Cup would do in the USA in 2023.
The 1994 men's World Cup had an average attendance of 69,174 per match. The 2018 men's World Cup had an average attendance of 47,371. Is the growth of the men's game worldwide overstated?
Like ThreeApples mentioned in 1999 World Cup all but the semi-final games were doubleheader games. So that number would be much smaller if they all were stand alone games (one example 34,256 for a doubleheader games in Chicago for Norway/Japan & Ghana/Sweden, very unlikely that either one of those games would get that for a stand alone game, but still that was a GREAT crowd for that doubleheader games), but that said I believe US would do as good or better than what France is doing this year. and Women's World Cup has gotten better (quality and competitive wise) since 1999 also, so that would help getting better crowds. Plenty of MLS SSS that could be used for some of the smaller attended games.
No country (besides USA) is going to break that average ever, Brazil got the closes with a 53,592. Oh even with 12 less games 1994 World Cup (USA) outdrew 2014 World Cup (Brazil) by 157,665.
Who cares? If the demand was there for the men's game, they would have built bigger stadiums. (I'm not making a serious point, just drawing attention to how dumb his comment was. The #fakenews bit just sealed it)
Not necessary: 1994 capacities 94,194 (Rose Bowl) 84,147 (Stanford Stadium) 77,557 (Pontiac Silverdome) 76,322 (Giants Stadium) 63,999 (Cotton Bowl) 63,160 (Solder Field) 62,387 (Citrus Bowl) 54,456 (Foxboro Stadium) 53,121 (RFK Stadium) 69,927 (Average) 2019 capacities of possible stadiums There are 8 stadium's with 100k+ capacity There are 4 stadium's with 90k+ capacity There are 11 stadium's with 80k+ capacity There are 17 stadium's with 70k+ capacity Yes, some of those probably couldn't/wouldn't be used, but we could here in the USA get a better average than 1994.
Yeah, the hashtag was dumb, but I don't think it's out of bounds to consider that perhaps the growth is a bit overstated. Clearly there is growth in TV viewership for concerned participants. Not sure about on-site/gate though. How much does it matter? Well, I guess that's the discussion.
Average Capacity of Stadiums currently in the 2026 plan (or at least bidding for matches) Canada (3 stadiums): 52,413 Mexico (3 stadiums): 63,018 USA (17 stadiums - not all of which will be selected, of course): 74,124