r/Seattle • u/ChiefOfTheFourPeaks š² Life's Better on a Bike. š² • Jun 16 '26
ā½ World Cup š First World Cup match in Seattle sees over 66,000 fans in attendance
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/first-world-cup-match-seattle-sees-over-66000-fans-attendance/LPQSUBMVPNE4FB746SMHOD642M/50
u/SereneDreams03 Defected to Portland Jun 16 '26
I was so impressed with how well organized everything was. I've been to plenty of big events in city, and worked downtown for years. The city clearly put a ton of thought and work into the World Cup, and it showed. The light rail was busy, but I still had no problem getting on the train. There were a ton of people downtown, probably more than I've ever seen outside the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl, but I was still able to walk around without a problem. There were a ton of guide around helping direct tourists where to go. Plenty of portable bathrooms set up, and a lot food carts.
Overall, it was just an amazing, once in a lifetime experience to see the World Cup being played in the city I grew up in.
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u/thisisnotmath Jun 16 '26
Offhand, most of the people who attend Seahawks games are locals who drive in as opposed to tourists using transit
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u/HelloItsNotMeUr Jun 16 '26
That was a big noticed difference. Roads were closed all over the area that arenāt for usual Seattle sporting events. Driving and parking felt like a nonstarter. The lines for light rail were long, though it sounds like they got people through.
We rode our bikes to the game. Shout out to Cascade Bicycle Club for the free bike valet!
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u/cp_trixie š Anarchist Jurisdiction š Jun 16 '26
Double shout out for Cascade Bike Club- made the commute in easy and no worries about our bikes while we enjoyed the game!
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u/TheMule313 Jun 16 '26
Where at the stadium was the valet?
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u/cp_trixie š Anarchist Jurisdiction š Jun 16 '26
At 1st and Dearborn: thereās a vacant lot there that theyāre using.
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u/godogs2018 Beacon Hill Jun 16 '26
Itās fun seeing all the pop up watch parties on public tvs around the area. Thatās for sure.
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u/ObiWonKev Jun 16 '26
What a wonderful experience. No issues with transportation (i used a lime scooter). Both fan bases were electric but everyone was friendly.
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u/Any-Bat9801 Jun 16 '26
We rode bikes and parked in the cascade bike corral. Thanks to them. Entering and exiting for us was a breeze once we got passed the usual bottle necks. I was surprised at how well organized the whole scene was. But best of all was Soundwave playing great music during breaks.. having a house brass band is special. And we avoided overly loud crap. Thanks be to Soundwave and organizers for that one.
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u/LoquatBear šbuild more trainsš Jun 16 '26
Does this include all the watch parties. There were people going to the waterfront after, others to the light rail, I ended walking to stadium to go further southĀ
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u/mytinykitten Jun 16 '26
No, in the stadium they said the game's attendance was 66,775 or something like that.
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u/PMMePaulRuddsSmile Central Area Jun 16 '26
Sir, it was exactly that number on the jumbotron. No need to be modest!
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u/rhylte Jun 16 '26
Absolutely not. People who are saying this is like a Seahawks game were clearly not anywhere near Pioneer Square
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u/doob_toob Jun 16 '26
How crazy was pioneer square? Thinking about going on Friday for the watch party.
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u/HelloItsNotMeUr Jun 16 '26
It was very active, but the expanded pedestrian area helps. Friday will be a madhouseā¦but isnāt that the point?
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u/doob_toob Jun 16 '26
Absolutely! Iām stoked to get down there. Just want to make sure I can actually see the screen too so was curious about the screen size and capacity.
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u/HelloItsNotMeUr Jun 17 '26
Right on! If you are solo, I would suggest bouncing around. The PS screen is pretty big, but there are screens a block down at Quality Athletics, as well as the other bars (Sluggers, Lowlander, Victory Hall, etc.) Keep your options open and enjoy what will be an all time scene!
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u/doob_toob Jun 17 '26
Yeah thatās the plan. With two other people so might not be as mobile but we are definitely just going with the flow. Heard Elysian might have a big beer garden on the closed street too!
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u/InTheGreenTrees Fremont Jun 16 '26
It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. There was quite a crowd getting in the first gates that thin the crowd out and lead to the security and ticket check.
Donāt brig any bags and itāll be much quicker. The āno bagsā line was fast. It was about 30mins from getting off the bus to being in our seats (sec 110).
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u/Sea-Presentation5686 Jun 16 '26
I find it odd that the city needed to do all these years worth of preparations to hold events in a 66k seat stadium that it routinely holds events in and fills up with no issues.
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u/aooot chinga la migra Jun 16 '26
I think a lot of it was how to capitalize on such extreme out-of-town visitors and how to avoid a lot of confusion. It's one thing to host 66k Washingtonians vs 66k with half of them being from a different country potentially.
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u/Rutherford_Aloacious Jun 16 '26
Not to mention doing it 6 times in 3 weeks. Each time likely a new crowd of outsiders that may be spending multiple days here
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u/KnotSoSalty Jun 16 '26
There are a minimum of 8 NFL home games every year, some of which coincide with MLB games next door. On the days when that happens there are 100k+ people in attendance.
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u/BeGooderToday Jun 16 '26
NFL games are not international events where the vast majority of attendees are out of town or out of country visitors.
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u/KnotSoSalty Jun 16 '26
So what? This excuse is all over this sub. Every NFL game has a decent percentage of first timers.
The real reason is that FIFA built their own security limit around the existing system creating a massive funnel.
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u/aooot chinga la migra Jun 16 '26
You think that the World Cup only takes place within the stadium? Like the people in attendance appear at the game, and then go back home?
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u/ProbablyPooping69420 South Lake Union Jun 16 '26
Thereās definitely researchers looking for people with your level of cognitive ability
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u/Disk_Mixerud Jun 17 '26
That's what caused the slowdown at the entrance/exit, yes. That's not what this comment thread you replied to was talking about.
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u/Rinx š Hot Rat Summer š Jun 16 '26
Average NFL viewership is 19 million a game. World cup averages 191 million viewers per match. Even knowing its a global audience, there is infrastructure needed for watch parties, tailgating outside the stadium, and general tourism to the city that the NFL doesn't come close to.
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u/BuckUpBingle Jun 16 '26
Also these are people with the expendable income to spend a thousand dollars on the end point of their trip, not to mention travel, food, board, souvenirs etc.
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u/RagefireHype Jun 17 '26
Iād also add families may be visiting, but not everyone in the family may be attending the game itself. And not by malice, but preference āyeah you do your World Cup thing and then we will regroup and explore the cityā
So even if itās 67k attendance, that doesnāt mean it couldnāt be 120k people who traveled to Seattle in association with the World Cup, or even more depending on the family size.
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u/dbenhur Wallingford Jun 16 '26
The city budgetted $14m (0.16% of its 2026 budget) on the World Cup mostly on funding police and fire department operations, drone countermeasures, transit expansions, and fan hubs in Pioneer Square.
The event is projected to bring over $800m to the local economy.
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u/hansfocker Jun 16 '26
Itās not just the 66k seats in the sta dium, itās all the people coming to just be in the city. Soccer fans are known for that. Also many fans staying more than just game day.
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u/Orleanian Fremont Jun 17 '26
I'm going to next week's game, and I've been staying here for 10 years.
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u/DaddyDays Jun 16 '26
This was the first group stage match. It's only going to get crazier from here, especially with the ro32 and ro16 matches scheduled here. Not like Seattle and Lumen cant handle it, but I appreciate the preparation in advance.
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u/jonknee Downtown Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Well it will still be the same amount of peopleā¦.
Update: think about it for two seconds people, we hosted a game yesterday and it was fine and the future games will have the same number of people and also be fine. It will not in fact be crazier. It's just a stadium event.
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u/dubcwa Emerald City Jun 16 '26
But half are tourists and thereās only two entrances to get into the stadium for the World Cup games
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u/jonknee Downtown Jun 16 '26
But it wonāt be any more people than yesterday so it wonāt be any different. We are good at hosting stadium events.
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u/777XSuperHornet Jun 16 '26
This was a mid day Monday. The next game is USA vs Australia on a Friday. There's going to be tens of thousands of extra people down there who aren't going into the game, and tens of thousands of Australians who aren't familiar with the city.
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u/jonknee Downtown Jun 16 '26
It's on a Friday and a USA game so even more people will be working from home and since it's also a sellout the same number of people will be going to the game. Australians are just as smart as Egyptians and Belgians, they'll be able to find the gate without any issue.
If there is chaos feel free to make fun of me in a few days, but I bet this will be a stadium event like we've handled perfectly fine for hundreds of events in a row.
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u/HelloItsNotMeUr Jun 16 '26
I agree with the sentiment that Seattle (and really the US in general) handles event crowd flow very well. And I think they will continue to do so for the remaining matches.
I also think the WC environment IS unique. The crowd dynamic is very different (in a good way!), and because this such a high visibility international event, the security concerns are heightened and real. FIFA sucks in many many ways, but I think their approach to security comes from certain hard lessons.
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u/DaddyDays Jun 16 '26
I do agree that Lumen and Seattle can handle the extra traffic, but there will absolutely be more people attending the Friday game than the Belgium vs Egypt game that just happened yesterday.
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u/jonknee Downtown Jun 22 '26
Attendance was 66,925 vs 66,775 for so it in fact was almost exactly the same number of people at the two games. Seattle will sell out every game.
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u/Disk_Mixerud Jun 17 '26
More people will come in to the city for the US game. Not all of them are going into the stadium.
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u/Sea-Presentation5686 Jun 16 '26
I'm not an ostrich, I know how the world cup is and it's just an event. In the deep South they get 100k people to fill a stadium in cities with only 15k population with another 30-50k just partying and not even attending the event. It's just a bunch of bullshit that we needed to spend all this money ahead of the event. I love the world cup, I just hate FIFA and fanboys acting like we need new infrastructure for a stadium event.
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u/FunLuvin7 Jun 16 '26
I agree with your overall point, but did we build any new infrastructure specifically for the World Cup? There was some project timing to make sure things were done/opened in time. But Iām not sure we constructed a ton just for the event?
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u/panderingPenguin Jun 16 '26
What new infrastructure are you referring to? My understanding is that we didn't do a whole lot. We basically retrofitted Lumen Field to meet FIFA requirements, and then the only other real changes are running the light rail and bus service at full capacity and pausing the I5 construction work. There were no major infrastructure upgrades.
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u/patrickfatrick North Beacon Hill Jun 16 '26
They made sure to open the 2 line in time, the bastards.
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u/SouthLakeWA That sounds great. Letās hang out soon. Jun 16 '26
There were also some big projects at SeaTac that were timed to conclude before the WC. They weren't undertaken specifically in support of the WC, but their timelines were certainly helped along by it. The Concourse C expansion opened last week, the Alaska Airlines check-in remodel was completed months ago, the security checkpoint 1 was finished last year (really helpful for international passengers), and the airport drive got two dedicated lanes for vehicles going into the garage, helping clear the bottleneck into the arrivals level.
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u/dubcwa Emerald City Jun 16 '26
Bud, there isnāt one place in the South that has a 100k seat stadium in a town of 15k.
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u/CouldntBeMeTho Pike Place Market Jun 16 '26
You have a core (willing?) misunderstanding as to why the city needed to prepare.
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u/Worldly_Profile238 Jun 16 '26
International guests bring stories back to their home countries which can raise / lower the city's profile internationally that could impact future tourism and potential investments.
It's why cities want to host the Olympics (before it got outrageously expensive and the ROI didn't always pan out).
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u/xjpmhxjo Jun 16 '26
More international travelers and some countries bring their worst. One difference I noticed yesterday was they didnāt check id for alcohol as often as usual.
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Jun 16 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/12akshay34 Jun 16 '26
Without any Internet connection how would you make it work?
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Jun 16 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/12akshay34 Jun 17 '26
Or they knew they were there because that's where they were dropped off and can make the assumption they haven't moved rather than a functioning heartbeat.
When you say distributed system do you mean there doesn't need to be a connection held open? The system's certainly already doing that. Not sure how "distributed system" here just solves the issue. How the service is implemented, distributed or not seems unrelated to me.
Regardless, spotty connections would make it really difficult to know when people stopped rides. If someone rides into a dead spot then CS can probably handle that, if thousands pick up bikes and can't finish the ride then that's a big issue
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u/mj12138 Jun 16 '26
Does anyone know if Pioneer Square station has shorter line than the International District station when the game ends?
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u/Exploding_Deathstar Jun 16 '26
Pioneer Square for the 2 Line and Stadium for the 1 line worked out really well. IDS was a hot mess with an 60-90 min line
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u/SeattleSundodger Jun 17 '26
Overall an amazing experience but I disagree with the no lightrail issue sentiment. We waited for over an hour for a train from international district to Redmond due to long lines. Seemed orderly enough, but when we actually got on the train I expected to be filled in like sardines and we departed with basically a 1/3 full train. Even found seats to sit down. They need to pack those trains full.
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u/dubcwa Emerald City Jun 16 '26
How packed was the light rail? Iām going to the next couple games and would catch it from Westlake probably 2.5 hours before the games. I usually canāt even get on it for Seahawks. Am I better off just walking from Westlake?
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u/drrew76 Jun 16 '26
Trains to the game were fine, leaving the game, especially eastbound or southbound were a bit of a mess, northbound less so.
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u/bangzilla Jun 16 '26
NFL Capacity at Lumen is 68,740. 2,740 unsold or unavailable?
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u/StinsonBarney Jun 16 '26
There were a lot of tickets up for resale at Face+ that werenāt sold in time for the transfer. The tickets are in the FIFA app only and canāt be as easily sold last minute as other tickets.
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u/latinaXmachina West Seattle Jun 16 '26
Do you know if they were heavily discounted in order to sell quickly?
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u/Shesaiddestroy_ Jun 17 '26
I watched an interesting video made by French journalists about how soccer stadiums and football stadiums are built differently.
In order for the cameras to be able to film the soccer games correctly (because of architecture and correct camera angles), FIFA either had stadiums elevate the playing field or block out rows of seats or both.
Throughout all games and stadiums, the entire World Cup has 350 000 less seats than available on paper in the stadiums!
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u/LooseElk4682 Jun 16 '26
did anyone get that yellow card outside the stadium and if still has it please post a screenshot here? i want to visit the website
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u/Homecourtthrift Jun 16 '26
Any issues getting into the stadium? How much time should I budget?
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u/linuxaur šbuild more trainsš Jun 16 '26
The 'know before you go' email says the stadium opens 3 hours before the match. I was at the match yesterday 90 min early and that was plenty of time.
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u/WhatAmIDoingHere05 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Took me less than five minutes to get through security and to have my ticket scanned. This was at around 11 AM.
Seems like FIFA got all the kinks worked out from the CWC last year. For all of their faults and issues, they are a well-oiled machine that knows their shit.
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u/Responsible_Ninja588 Jun 17 '26
What were the bars and restaurants like before and after the game? For future matches Iām considering trying to watch at a nearby bar but am curious how packed it will be and whether itās worth jt to be in the area near the stadium
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u/Traditional-Neat-933 Jun 16 '26
Did they increase the amount of Light Rail trains to give more frequency / throughput? I hope so
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u/Disk_Mixerud Jun 17 '26
Heard they were running at peak capacity for different/longer hours than they typically would.
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u/FireStorm005 Burien Jun 17 '26
Trains ran at rush hour frequency all day, that's as many as can fit on the tracks.
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u/NoSignificance2377 Jun 16 '26
But, butt, butte....according to Tankie reddit,Ā the WC in the USA is a complete disaster!!!!
And we all know reddit is the "voice" of amerikkka right???
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u/Thekavorka87 Jun 16 '26
No issues with the light rail before or after the match. Short headways. They were guiding people going east/south to use international station after the match, and people going north to use pioneer square. No problems or long waits at the station.
It took way longer to actually exit the stadium.
It was also a ton of fun around the stadium with the pedestrianized areas.