The Roundup: The World Cup Bump That Wasn't
From the Editor
What's up, South End?
A story that caught my eye this week was reporting from both the Emerald and The Seattle Times about businesses in the Chinatown-International District not getting expected economic boosts from the World Cup. This was especially true for establishments that aren’t bars.
As the reporting was coming through, my initial thoughts went to the expectations on the front end. I know our city as a whole saw a jump in revenue when the MLB All-Star Game came in 2023. Then, we saw an even bigger boost that same year when Taylor Swift did shows on back-to-back nights a few weeks later.
Did the CID see increased sales and foot traffic for those events?
As I was mulling it over, it hit me. Damn. I went to Philly last week for a World Cup game and did the same thing. I only spent money in bars.
We had never been to Philadelphia. We intentionally found a neighborhood far enough from the stadium to have parking but close enough for a quickish Lyft. We ended up in Fishtown. It reminded me a lot of Cap Hill.
Pre-game, we went to a bar, ate food, and drank plenty. Then we used an app for a ride to the stadium. Post-game, we grabbed dinner (cheesesteaks — plant-based for me), got coffee for the ride back to New York (where we stayed), and headed out.
So, we did the thing business owners in the CID are talking about. We spent nearly every penny in bars or at the stadium. No other establishments benefited at all from our tourism.
This is a complicated topic. The World Cup is a unique event, so I do understand why the expectations may have been so high. While the All-Star Game and Taylor Swift shows were weekend events — the World Cup takes place over many weeks.
To get a better idea of what’s going on in the CID, I recently chatted with Maya Tizon. She not only enjoys hanging out in the neighborhood, but she also did the reporting for the story published this week in the Emerald.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
MD: You did the reporting on small businesses in the CID. Reports said about 750,000 people were coming into our city. There was a lot of preparation that went into this. You spoke with local businesses. Can you just give me an overview of what you heard?
MT: Most of what I was hearing was that the foot traffic and the sales had pretty much stayed the same as it would normally be. I talked to the manager at Oasis Tea Zone, for example, and he said that he was expecting at least a 10% increase in sales during the World Cup, like on a per day basis, and he was saying that they hadn't really seen a difference. It was mostly just the regulars coming in. When I asked him if it was disappointing, he said that it wasn't necessarily disappointing, because they're not doing worse than before, but it's just not what they were expecting.
I heard a lot of the same thing or very similar things from each of the businesses I spoke to. It was interesting talking to all of them, because I think collectively, they were all hoping for more.
MD: Did you hear anything about how those expectations were formed? We’ve had big events in Seattle that moved the needle for businesses, like the MLB All-Star Game and Taylor Swift concerts. Did those events benefit the CID? Was that part of setting these expectations?
MT: The All-Star Game and the Taylor Swift concert are things that drew a lot of people to downtown, and a lot of people to the stadium, but there is a difference here: The World Cup is an ongoing event for like a month and a half. I don’t know if any event can compare to that. I know that the CID did a lot of events in June. They did a couple of watch parties for World Cup games and they successfully broke the world record for the largest dim sum meal. I know that they've had events specifically in the CID during all of these bigger city-hosted events to try to draw people in, but it seems like even with those efforts, it's not bringing people in the way businesses expected it would.
MD: You’ve mentioned that in your personal life, you tend to spend a lot of time in the CID. Anecdotally, has it felt different there during the World Cup? Have you noticed larger crowds?
MT: I’ve noticed that when you walk down to the waterfront or Pioneer Square, it's crazy and there's so many people, there's so many tourists around, and everyone is wearing a soccer jersey. But when I have gone to the CID, I do feel like there is not much of a difference to how it was before the World Cup. I was totally expecting Chinatown to be really busy this whole month, because I thought tourists would want to check out local food spots while they're here in Seattle.
I went to a DJ event recently at Hood Famous Bakeshop, and the local community still came out, but it was just locals, like there were not a lot of tourists or out-of-towners that came. The summer kickoff block party was also poppin’, but again, it was locals and people from the neighborhood. So, the CID has not gotten a lot of outside support from tourists that FIFA has brought to Seattle.
The Roundup Rundown
I mentioned this article from Maya Tizon above. Businesses in the CID reported spending more on staff and supplies ahead of the World Cup, then not getting the expected uptick in foot traffic or revenue.
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Mike Davis is the newsletter editor and Voices editor at the South Seattle Emerald. Born and raised in Seattle's South End, Mike is a longtime journalist who's covered everything from arts and culture to sports to politics.
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