Get ready to channel your inner Ted Lasso, Chicago.
Thousands of football fans are expected to don their colours and head to Lincoln Park this weekend to cheer on their favourite British clubs as Premier League Mornings Live brings a two-day nationally televised viewing party to Chicago.
The fan festival, organised by the Premier League and NBC Sports, which holds exclusive US television rights to the top tier of British football, will feature nine big-screen TVs showing 10 live matches on Saturday and Sunday morning.
The NBC Sports team of host Rebecca Lowe and analysts Robbie Earle, Robbie Mustoe and Tim Howard will broadcast the Premier League Mornings Live studio show from the event starting at 7am each day.
Special guests will include Premier League champion and former Chelsea captain Gary Cahill, former Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira and “Chicago PD” actor Benjamin Aguilar, himself an accomplished soccer player.
The Premier League event comes to Chicago as professional soccer, long relegated to the background in the United States, continues to gain traction with fans. Ratings are up for NBC’s weekend morning broadcasts of British soccer matches, while MLS, the American professional league that includes the Chicago Fire, has a national platform with Apple TV+ and is on track to hit record attendances this season, bolstered by Argentine superstar Lionel Messi, who plays for Miami.
The Fire drew more than 55,000 fans to Soldier Field for an August game against Miami, despite Messi’s absence because of an ankle injury. Attendance at the Fire’s home games is averaging 21,500 this season, an 18% increase from the previous year, the team said.
National interest in soccer is also being boosted by the expected arrival of the World Cup in North America in 2026, with matches hosted by 13 MLS cities. Chicago was not selected.
“This is all tied to the World Cup coming to North America,” said Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports marketing consultant. “Whether this fan festival is a huge success or just a hardcore fan, it will get more exposure (for soccer) and there will be more to come, including more friendlies (exhibition games) next year, all leading up to the World Cup.”
Ganis said soccer is moving from the fringes to the mainstream of professional sports in the United States, but MLS is limited by the fact that most of the best players ply their trade overseas, including top American talent.
Just as the NBA, NFL and MLB are building fan bases internationally, the Premier League is increasingly resonating with American soccer fans, who appreciate the quality, competitiveness and physicality of the British game, he said.
“Americans who are interested in soccer pay attention to the Premier League because it is the best league in the world,” Ganis said.
Culturally, interest in the Premier League has certainly been piqued by Apple TV’s hit series “Ted Lasso”, in which a fictional American football manager navigates the fervent fandom and very foreign world of British football.
This weekend, fans will be able to watch all of the Premier League matches outdoors, amid the greenery of Lincoln Park, the lakefront and the Chicago skyline. The programme will kick off with West Ham United v Chelsea at 6:30am on Saturday and conclude with Manchester City v Arsenal, the top two teams in the league, kicking off at 10:30am on Sunday.
Attendees will also be able to have their photo taken with the Premier League trophy and club mascots. Other activities include youth soccer clinics and coach development sessions held in collaboration with the Chicago Fire and the Chicago Red Stars, the local team that competes in the professional women’s soccer league.
The event is free, but online registration has closed. A Premier League spokesperson said thousands of people had registered, but declined to give a specific number. In April, more than 15,000 fans attended a similar weekend event at the Premier League in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Premier League and NBC have leased the field on the south end of Lincoln Park from the Chicago Park District for the two-day event. The fan festival will take place in the area between South Pond, LaSalle Drive, Stockton Drive and DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
Chicago is the 10th U.S. city to host Premier League Mornings Live, which has attracted more than 85,000 soccer fans since the first event in Washington, DC, in 2018.
The traveling fan festival has since landed in New York, Boston, Austin, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Orlando and, most recently, Nashville, which set attendance records for the event.
Kara Bachman, executive director of the Chicago Sports Commission, said the city was approached by the Premier League earlier this year about hosting the event. The September date, which falls at the start of the Premier League season and the end of Chicago’s peak tourist season, proved to be a good fit, she said.
“September is definitely a great month to attract business to Chicago,” said Bachman, who expects local, regional and international attendees to come to the event.
The city is hoping to surpass Nashville’s attendance record, which could provide a boost to tourism after a busy summer that saw everything from the second NASCAR Chicago Street Race to the Democratic National Convention attract an influx of visitors — and favorable media attention.
Bachman touted the media value of NBC returning to Chicago for another nationally televised sporting event after the ratings success of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Grant Park, which averaged 1.5 million viewers. nearly 3.9 million viewers during the July 4th weekend.
“The number of fans watching the Premier League is such that they are really enjoying it,” she said. “And this weekend, those moments will include photos of Chicago and thousands of fans of Premier League teams having a great time in Chicago, watching the games together in a spirit of great fellowship.”
The Premier League fan festival also represents the latest iteration of a growing sports exchange program between Chicago and London, which potentially boosts everything from tourism to business investment in both cities.
In June 2023, about 110,000 fans watched the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals share a two-game series at London Stadium, with the MLB event generating about $70 million in economic impact, according to London & Partners, the city’s economic development agency.
Next month, Chicago will take American football across the Atlantic when the Bears take on the Jacksonville Jaguars at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the namesake home of a Premier League club. The October 13 game will mark the fourth time the Bears have played in London since 1986, when the reigning Super Bowl champions beat the Dallas Cowboys in a preseason game.
“London and Chicago are key partner cities and nothing demonstrates this better than the bilateral exchange of our sports franchises with the Bears playing in London in October and the Premier League Mornings Live Fan Festival being held in Chicago,” said Stephen Feline, head of North America for London & Partners, in a statement. “This close relationship is reflected in the business world with companies from both cities growing and thriving in the other, in the areas of financial services, technology and sustainability.”
Last season, the Premier League schedule, which aired from August to May on NBC and its cable networks, averaged a record 546,000 viewers and topped 2 million viewers for a match between title contenders Manchester City and Arsenal in March.
That could mean a lot of eyes will be on Chicago for Sunday’s rematch during the fan festival. Bachman said the city is ready for another moment in the national television spotlight.
“Our city can speak for itself in terms of images – the cityscape, the parks, the lake,” Bachman said. “It looks good on television. Good for us, good for them.”
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