Tickets Purchased: 1. South Africa: 361,582 2: USA: 84,103 3. England: 48,388 Link: http://www.bigapplesoccer.com/worldcup2010/article.php?article_id=21626 Wow. I knew the support from Cup to Cup gets bigger and greater but I did not expect this much. I gotta feeling the boys will be better supported in SA than in USA.
These are not necessarily USA fans. But people who live in the US. They could be supporting any other of the 30 countries involved.
Same argument can be made for the English tickets that a lot of those buyers live in England but are from Africa.
Hey I would love it if 82, 000 people from the USA bought tickets to support the USMNT at the WC. But I somehow think that at least half the tickets purchased are from wealthy people living in America who still support their original homeland in the world of football.
82k does not mean 82,000 people but 82k tickets. More likely people bought 3+ tix. So the # of people could be 25k (just a guess). But regardless, we'll have a LARGE presence there.
^ - what Taly said. 82k tickets not people. I'm sure a chunk of these 82k tickets were bought by naturalized citizens or first generation Americans who are supporting their original "homeland". Either way there's going to be a major influx of USA support.
I'd be curious to know how many of the USA ticket buyers are going to be watching games for El Tri. P.S. Not me, my brother and I have four TST-6s to follow the USA!
No joke...I'd say half are Mexicans in the US, 25% are people in the US not going for the Nats, and 25% are USMNT supporters.
Just curious how many US-based Mexican fans you think are actually shelling out thousands of dollars to go to South Africa? The vast majority of Mexican fans in this country probably send that money home to family, or need it to live off of. Based on their sheer presence in this country we might assume that US-based Mexican fans bought 40,000 tickets, but I'd seriously doubt it. I dont think there are that many wealthy Tri fans in the US. I'd assume a large # of these tickets were sold to: 1) Ticket Brokers 2) US fans 3) Individual gamers (knockout stages) 4) Brazil "fans" 5) Mexico fans 6) England fans 7) Italian fans 8) The rest
Probably more like 10% Mexicans in the US, 30% other nationalities in US, 30% fairweather/Euro-snob US fans, and 30% legitimate US fans.
If you subtract the four tickets that I purchased to every US group match, then the South African total is 361,570. I had the girlfriend's parents in South Africa buy my tickets because they pay a lot less.
Are you telling me about 25K tickets are being sold to US supporters, and our contingent at each of the group games will be somewhere between 5-8K? Awesome!
It will be interesting to see who the South African spectators wind up supporting in the US v England match. I predict an overwhelming pro US crowd.
My prediction? England fans make offers that poor South Africans cant refuse, and there are hardly any local fans at the match.
Not to get political here, but to South Africans: England could either be the former oppressor, or the mother country. USA could either the Great Satan, or the great liberator. I will imagine that most of the soccer savvy ones will be there to see Rooney, Gerard, etc.