If the summer of 2024 was a ‘Brat Summer’ inspired by Charlie XCX’s album then the summer of 2026, it was a case of it being ‘New York or Nowhere’. Anything and everything was happening in the Big Apple.
From The Knicks winning their first NBA title for 53 years, July 4th being the 250th anniversary of American Independence, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce tying the knot at Madison Square Garden, Jay Z’s residency at Yankee Stadium and of course the small matter of the World Cup.
I was fortunate enough to be based in New York for the duration of the World Cup and the questions I was asked more than any other from people back home was: “Do the Americans ‘get’ the World Cup? Are they buying into it?” Well the answer was a resounding ‘yes’.
New York is a sports-mad city, although the start of the World Cup coincided with the NBA Finals – the New York Knicks were going for their first championship since 1973 and so understandably everyone was gripped by it – the World Cup definitely cut through in a city where there is a lot going on.
New York’s sports fans had been starved of recent success. The Yankees have not won the World Series since 2009, the Mets have gone even longer with their last triumph coming the year after Live Aid in 1986. The New York Giants last won the Super Bowl in 2011 and the New York Rangers last lifted the Stanley Cup in 1994 – coincidentally when the USA last hosted the World Cup.
In fact, the last sports team to win a major title was New York City FC when they won the MLS Cup in 2021.
So when the Knicks went into Game 5 3-1 up and knowing they were one win from history it is understandable that New Yorkers focused on their team.
The reaction was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Cars, buses, lamp posts… nowhere was safe from celebrating fans. The NYPD closed down the streets surrounding Madison Square Garden for fear of overcrowding, and used horses to break up large groups of fans. An estimated two million people descended on the streets of downtown Manhattan for the open-top bus parade days later. And so for the first week the World Cup took a back seat.
That passion then spilled across into football. Every bar, barber shop and bodega had the football on the TV, and New York had five official fan parks, one in each borough. All were packed. Further giant screens around the city showed every game.
New York is a hugely diverse city and Queens is known as the ‘World’s Borough’ – I watched Colombia play in a Colombian bar in Jackson Heights, Ecuador in Little Ecuador in Corona and Argentina in the Boca Juniors steakhouse in Elmhurst – each an experience I will never forget and all with extremely knowledgeable and passionate fans.
The Boca Juniors steakhouse was wrapped in a giant Argentina flag and I was in there when Lionel Messi scored twice against Austria to break the World Cup goalscoring record and the celebrations and happiness in the building was unlike anything I have ever experienced when watching football.
In Times Square, right at the heart of Manhattan, billboards delivered a sensory overload dominated by the World Cup. Messi promoting Michelob Ultra lager, Christian Pulisic flogging deodorant and Argentina players fronting a campaign for prediction market company Kalshi. One night, a barge carried a 50ft cutout of Lamine Yamal down the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, to promote the newest pair of Adidas boots.
Shop after shop had football shirts – real and fake – for sale. In any 10-minute period, you could walk the streets and see jerseys of all 48 nations at the tournament.
Times Square became the unofficial home of fan takeovers. If a country was playing at the MetLife Stadium, a few miles away in New Jersey, fans would descend on the intersection, singing and dancing. In the group stage alone, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Norway and Panama all turned up in numbers. The Norwegians even did the Viking Row.
American supporters were just as passionate. I witnessed the USA’s last-32 clash with Bosnia in a new Brooklyn bar called Socceria, and New York mayor Zohran Mamdani even turned up to watch. He was one of the biggest winners of the tournament, by doing a deal to provide cheaper tickets for locals.
When there were big VAR calls, bars would fall silent as people waited to hear the decision, this was a nation of sports fans gripped by the World Cup. When the USMNT were eventually knocked out by Belgium it did feel like someone had let the air out of the balloon, but the fans picked themselves out and got stuck into the rest of the tournament.
Even right at the end of the tournament, the ‘game of shame’ or Bronze medal match between France and England – with a 6-4 scoreline to the Three Lions was one of the games of the tournament – and one of the city’s most popular haunts to watch the World Cup, Houston Hall, was packed with fans watching on a Saturday evening.
The city’s famous landmarks leant themselves to the World Cup. Classic Football Shirts took over the Empire State Building with an exhibition, the Atlas statue outside the Rockefeller Centre replaced the globe with a giant adidas football to promote the final ball. A giant lego replica of the World Cup trophy stood where the famous Rockefeller Christmas tree usually stands, I watched Spain beat Belgium on the Top of the Rock and Netherlands vs Japan under the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. While fans packed into Central Park to watch Spain beat Argentina in the final.
Shop windows were dressed in World Cup memorabilia. Ahead of the final, drones lit up the Manhattan skyline with the World Cup trophy. The city gave itself to the World Cup and the world came to play in New York City.
There was plenty not to like about this World Cup – unnecessary advertising hydration breaks, dynamic ticket prices, political interference and a half time show at the final. But when it came to the fans adopting football, there was not a better place to be than America and New York.
So don’t be fooled by people saying that America didn’t ‘get’ the World Cup. I spent six weeks there, and can confirm they absolutely did and there is nowhere I would rather have experienced it than New York.