By David Owen
November 16 – A World Cup in the United States could attract a staggering five million live spectators, according to a top 2018/2022 US bid committee official.
David Downs, Executive Director of the US bid, told insideworldfootball in an exclusive interview that the US would aim to average “darn near 80,000” spectators a match – rather more than the present capacity of Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium – should it be entrusted with either the 2018 or 2022 tournament.
Downs’s assertion will come as a sharp reminder to the US’s nine rivals of the commercial firepower that the world’s biggest economy can marshal in support of its ambition to stage a second World Cup a generation after making its hosting debut with the 1994 competition.
With tickets available in such numbers, organisers would need to secure on average only an eminently achievable $200 (£120) a ticket for the competition to generate a remarkable $1 billion (£600 million) from ticket sales alone.
As Downs said, the current record aggregate attendance for a World Cup came in 1994 when a total of 3.6 million spectators were attracted to the 52 matches.
In Germany three years ago, a total of 3.36 million spectators watched the 64 matches; in South Korea and Japan four years earlier the corresponding tally was 2.71 million.
The present US bid’s ambitions on the attendance front mean that most matches in a US World Cup would inevitably be played in non-soccer-specific stadia.
However, Downs – who also disclosed that the US would propose the use of a maximum 18 venues in its bid book – said new sports stadia in the US were now being built with soccer in mind.
He said the first two sports events held at the new $1 billion Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, known for its massive high-definition television screen, were soccer events.
The US is widely felt to enjoy a tactical advantage in the keenly contested race for the two tournaments, whose hosts are to be revealed in December next year, since it is the only bidder from the CONCACAF region, covering North and Central America and the Caribbean.
By contrast, there are four European bidders and five from Asia, two of which – Qatar and South Korea – are competing only for the 2022 competition.
While many feel that the governing body FIFA will want to return to Europe in 2018, after holding its flagship competition in South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014, Downs (pictured) made clear that the US was not simply targeting 2022.
“We are really targeting both,” he said.
“We will be equally happy if we get one or the other.
“We know we are capable of doing it as early as 2018.
“We are pretty happy however that works out.”
A long-time broadcast industry executive with both ABC and Univision Communications, Downs oversaw the latter company’s coverage of the last two World Cups – in South Korea/Japan and Germany.
He said he was “tremendously impressed” by the Fanfests in Germany, which “made me dream about how wonderful some of our American cities could be”.
He mentioned both the National Mall in Washington DC and Central Park in New York as possible Fanfest locations.
“The only city in 1994 that came close to having a Fanfest atmosphere on a small scale was Orlando,” he said.
Asked about the sheer size of the US and the long distances fans might be required to travel as a result, he indicated that, while “we fully intend to have a full national footprint”, teams might expect to play their first-phase group matches in one half of the country or the other.
Hence, while an opening round itinerary taking in, say, New York, Washington and Atlanta was possible, one encompassing Boston, San Diego and Miami was not.
Downs, who was Dutch-born and is an Arsenal fan, described the decision to stage the 1994 World Cup in the US as “visionary”, at a time when the country was not as “soccer-passionate” as others.
Alluding to the legacy of growth that this competition engendered, he said: “We like to think we have reached half-time in the match.
“A second World Cup, nine or 13 years from where we sit today, would finish the match.”
Downs and his colleagues – who include former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who both sit on the bid’s board of directors – have around 13 months to bring the 24 members of FIFA’s powerful Executive Committee around to their way of thinking.
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