I walked through Midtown this morning and the energy was different.

Flags from every nation. Jerseys everywhere. A dozen languages bouncing off the buildings. The FIFA World Cup 2026 is officially in New York City with 8 matches at MetLife Stadium, a Final on July 19th, and an estimated 1.2 million international visitors flowing through this city over the next several weeks.

Broadway should be thrilled.

And we are. But we also have to be honest about three very real headwinds standing between us and this once-in-a-generation audience.

Headwind #1: They Came for the Soccer.

This is the fundamental challenge. World Cup fans are not here to browse. They are here for one thing.

Think about it this way: when New York hosts the marathon, we always try to capture those runners, their families, their support crews. And it’s hard. Because marathon people are in marathon mode. They’re not wandering into a theater.

World Cup fans are the same. Whether their team is playing or not, they’re watching matches at a pub, meeting up with fans from their home country, living inside this global event 24 hours a day. Getting their attention on a Broadway show is going to take real creativity.

Headwind #2: Hotel Prices Pushed Away the People Who Would Have Come.

Here’s the thing nobody’s talking about, folks: the World Cup didn’t just bring new visitors. It also scared off the visitors we already had.

The people who were planning a NYC trip this summer specifically to see Broadway shows — maybe they had been planning for months — looked at hotel prices in June and July and said, “We’ll come in September instead.”

High demand drove prices up. Higher prices deterred existing Broadway-goers. That’s a real offset to the tourist influx, and we can’t pretend otherwise.

Headwind #3: The Locals Left.

New Yorkers have a complicated relationship with their city when it’s overrun. Packed subway cars. Crowds in every restaurant. Lines everywhere. A lot of the locals I’ve been talking to are saying the same thing: “The World Cup is here . . . so I’m getting out of here.”

And those are exactly the people who fill seats at Broadway shows. Regularly. On a Tuesday night. They’re not some hypothetical audience. They’re the backbone of our attendance.

When they leave, we feel it.

So What Do We Do?

I want to be clear: I am not pessimistic about this.

One. Point. Two. Million. Visitors.

That’s an audience. A massive, passionate, global audience that loves spectacle, loves performance, loves the kind of energy that only a live event can deliver. The match-day experience at MetLife Stadium is extraordinary — and there’s no reason the Broadway experience can’t be part of their New York story too.

But we have to earn it. We can’t just assume they’ll wander in.

We have to meet them where they are. We have to make the case in their language — literally and figuratively. We have to make it easy. We have to make it feel like a must-do, not a maybe.

The 8 matches run through July 19th. That’s weeks of opportunity still ahead of us.

I’m racking my brain on how we convert this audience. And I’d genuinely love to know what you think. What would get a World Cup fan to buy a Broadway ticket this week? Tell me in the comments on this post.

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