More fans are flocking to watch World Cup matchups in person than they did the last time around. After the first 13 days and 48 matches of the World Cup, FIFA reports a cumulative stadium attendance of 2.45 million spectators, a 13% increase in attendance from the 2018 tournament. The quarter-finals will soon be set after the round of 16 comes to a close today.
If you would like more context on this matter, please consider Lisa Delpy Neirotti, the director of the MS in Sport Management Program and an associate professor of sport management at the George Washington University. She has been a professor of sport, event and tourism management at GW for more than 30 years. Her areas of expertise include sponsorships, event and facility management, sport marketing, economic impact, sport tourism, and sport for social good. She also specializes in mega events like the Olympic Games and the World Cup.
Delpy Neirotti attended the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar for the group stage, which became the sixth World Cup she’s attended.
“It was a once in a lifetime opportunity at a World Cup that you could see so many matches and so many different fans at once because all of the teams were located in Qatar, which is more like a city,” Delpy Neirotti says. “It’s smaller than the Washington D.C. metro area, only 2.5 million people, so all the fans from South Korea to Germany to Australia to the U.S. and Iran – we just had so much fun all together, cheering each other on.”
“Looking forward to 2026, the tournament’s going to spread not only across the United States, from east coast to west coast and Kansas in the middle, but then you have Mexico and Canada thrown in there. So, people are going to spend a lot of time traveling in order to see so many matches.”
Delpy Neirotti can also speak to a number of other topics related to her time volunteering at the World Cup, as well as other emerging storylines out of Qatar.
If you would like to speak with Professor Delpy Neirotti, please contact Media Relations Specialist Cate Douglass at [email protected].
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