00:00Driving around Atlanta, try to have our finger on the pulse of what folks are going to be talking about.
00:06Now, it is going to be really fascinating as World Cup plays out across America.
00:13There's obviously a lot of angles.
00:16Now, the USA national team that is going to be playing in Los Angeles,
00:22and they got Paraguay to start, they got Australia in the mix.
00:28I forget who the third matchup is, trying to get out of the group stage, whatever it is.
00:31That's going to be a huge thing.
00:32And driving World Cup interest, the USA team has to play well enough to get folks
00:36who are very borderline sports fans when it comes to soccer involved.
00:40But then there's all these other cities and all these other venues.
00:43And across North America from, I think, Toronto and Mexico City and other places,
00:48mostly in America, where we're trying to figure out what this is going to look like, feel like, and be
00:54like.
00:55And the early indication is a lot of cities are getting a harsh dose of reality.
01:03Yeah, and here's the thing.
01:05Will the views be there?
01:06Yes, nothing gets watched like these games because it's worldwide.
01:09It's a worldwide sporting event.
01:11All right.
01:11So the views will be there.
01:12It's the economic impact on the city that's hosting.
01:16And that's the question.
01:17And I know some people in some tourism places.
01:19And kind of unsolicited, I was asking, or the conversation came up,
01:24and I said, how is Atlanta doing with this World Cup?
01:27And they're like, man, starting to be some worries with travel, especially early on.
01:32Now, there's going to be fans, and there's a ton of fans here already in the city
01:35that are soccer fans going to go.
01:36But, like, are we going to have this massive amount of people,
01:42influx of people, yeah, to come?
01:44And those things, because I know that the restaurants,
01:46I know how much money the city of Atlanta is spending on this thing.
01:49And the semifinal game is going to be like a Super Bowl.
01:52There's no question that is going to be something like you've never seen.
01:55But are we going to have that impact starting in about 10 days
01:59that's going to last four weeks?
02:01I don't know that, Stake.
02:02Yeah, I don't think it is.
02:03I think you said it.
02:04I think it was really interesting talking to Mike Conte yesterday.
02:07And if you're going to the World Cup, had a notion of trying to get World Cup tickets,
02:14where is your head at now, 404-726-0929?
02:18Have you already secured your World Cup tickets?
02:21I would imagine most of not because of the cost.
02:24But what Mike Conte made clear, I said, listen, Mike,
02:27once we get to those elimination stage, right, once you get to the –
02:31That's around the 16, right?
02:32Yeah, so we're going to have three or four games
02:35where the winner continues and the loser go home.
02:38I said, you're going to get France, Germany, Portugal.
02:41You're going to get England.
02:43I mean, you're going to get soccer powerhouse.
02:46You already have Spain.
02:48His point was you are not making up that money
02:51by folks flying from across the pond or from around the world to Atlanta.
02:57You've got to make it up within the region of drivable to Atlanta
03:02within two, three, four, five hours.
03:04Birmingham.
03:05Yeah, Birmingham.
03:05Just from Charlotte.
03:06Kids who are huge soccer fans and families that say,
03:10we're going to do the weekend in Atlanta and we're going to try to see
03:12because it's the only time in our life we'll ever be able to watch a World Cup game
03:16or see Messi or see Mbappe or see some of these guys.
03:20And they're going to have to count on the country becoming engaged enough.
03:24There's all kinds of fear about issues that getting in and out of America,
03:31immigration, fears of how smooth it's going to be if you're a family of five
03:35coming over and trying to get out.
03:36The cost of travel that has went up in the last 60, 90 days.
03:39Oh, yeah.
03:39Look at the oil prices, which have changed the airline prices,
03:42which is making it prohibitive.
03:45The cost that FIFA puts on these World Cup games, the lack of action.
03:49I mean, there's a lot of challenges.
03:50What will be fascinating is to see how it starts to play out.
03:54And the momentum of the United States winning and starting to learn more.
03:58Listen, we have to be educated.
04:00It's like one big Kimberly conversation.
04:03What does Kimberly always tell me?
04:04My wife is not a huge sports fan.
04:06Tell me why I should care who these players are.
04:08Give me a background.
04:09The other night with Victor Weminyama, I said,
04:11you need to watch this interview.
04:13And I need to give you the whole back story of where this kid came from,
04:17how young he is, what he's doing in the NBA, why you want to root for him.
04:22The American public needs that, first of all, with our own team, right?
04:26Oh, yeah.
04:27Can you name one player?
04:28United States?
04:29Well, yeah.
04:30Yeah, I can name a few.
04:31Pulisic, obviously, is the most famous one we've had in a while.
04:35For USA?
04:36Yes, for USA.
04:37I can name a few players because my son follows it.
04:40But listen, he sticks his nose up at the American team
04:42because he follows international soccer, European, Italian soccer.
04:46That is.
04:46But my point is, like, American team has to do their part.
04:50They have a friendly this weekend against Germany in Chicago.
04:52Where at?
04:53Chicago.
04:53In Chicago.
04:54That will be a big deal.
04:55And then you have to tell people why they should care.
04:58There's a lot of folks from France, a lot of folks from England,
05:01a lot of folks from all these countries that live here now,
05:04that are now American citizens whose families came over.
05:08Like my mom, who's a Turkish, grew up in Istanbul.
05:13Now, do I care about the Turkish national team?
05:15No.
05:16But can I claim them?
05:17I heard they had a good last couple weeks.
05:19Can I claim them?
05:20So I'm curious, do you have a mindset that you're going to wait for another round
05:24to get to these games?
05:26Because it's a lot of money right now to say you saw Spain versus Cape Verde
05:30or Congo versus Uzbekistan, right?
05:35Like, those are World Cup games.
05:37But the reality is Spain and Saudi Arabia is going to cost you hundreds
05:41and hundreds of dollars.
05:43So is Czechia versus South Africa.
05:46These are all Atlanta games.
05:48There's eight matches in the group stage and then later on in the three rounds
05:53after, which will be round of 16 quarterfinals.
05:59And then on July 15th, we get the semifinal game leading into the title.
06:05It's a month of our lives here, Rusty, in the United States.
06:09So it's kind of fascinating.
06:10A lot of work went into it.
06:11I mean, listen, I'm that person because the NBA finals will be over.
06:17Hockey will be over.
06:18It'll be Major League Baseball.
06:19There's no college sports going on and all that.
06:21If you give me games to watch that are going to be competitive, I will watch them.
06:25And tell them why they matter.
06:26Tell us who the best players in the world are.
06:28If nothing less, I will tune in in the semis.
06:31And I will see.
06:33You'll probably tune in sooner than that because it's going to be interesting to see these venues
06:36from Kansas City to Seattle to Chicago to New York, Boston, Atlanta, how they're handling
06:42this, how big a deal it is.
06:44The fans are what make it a lot of times.
06:46You know, part of it is what's helped the NBA and NHL are those huge crowds outside the
06:51arena when they cut away and they're like, there's 10,000 people.
06:55They did it in Milwaukee.
06:56They do it in Toronto.
06:57There's that many people outside.
06:58So you start to get a feeling of how important it is.
07:01I think you'll start to see that.
07:03But hotels, 50% full, if that.
07:06Nowhere near the prices they hope to get.
07:09Listen, the Super Bowl prices, Rusty, you're going to have a $900 minimum at the Hilton
07:15Garden Inn near Mercedes-Benz and it's going to be-
07:18And Norcross.
07:18Yeah.
07:19And Norcross will have minimums.
07:21Yes.
07:22And they'll have three, four-night minimums, right?
07:24Yes.
07:24So the people I know in Nashville, they had to go, they had to be committed to 80,000
07:31hotel rooms to be able to hold Super Bowl.
07:33There is 60,000 now.
07:35So add another 20 in five years.
07:36So they'll have that.
07:37But you've got to be a minimum 80,000 to host.
07:40Yeah.
07:41So listen, the expectations restaurants and hotels and all of them have, of course, it's
07:46not going to meet them for the group stage.
07:47Can you get on a run on the back two weeks of this thing when we have those three elimination
07:52games in a row, round of 16, round of eight, round of four, can that make up for it?
07:57If there's five days leading to a game, England versus France, what will it look like in America
08:02at a venue like ours?
08:04We shall see.
08:05And if you have a thought, your kids play soccer, you're from somewhere else.
08:09I know that, you know, there's a lot of folks that have settled here.
08:16I talked to restaurant people.
08:17All the guys that work in the back, you know, are from some other country.
08:20They're soccer fans.
08:21They're going to watch it.
08:22They speak Spanish.
08:23They're from the Dominican.
08:24They're from Mexico.
08:24They're from wherever.
08:26They're not getting tickets, but they're going to be engaged.
08:28What does it look like for them to be engaged?
08:31There's a lot of, you know, immigrants.
08:33Their soccer is by far one, one, one, one, one.
08:35There's no one, a one, B, one, C.
08:37Yeah.
08:37They're not worried about two and pennies.
08:39No, no, they're not worried about that battle.
08:41They are not.
08:41So 404-726-0929.
08:44If you want to get, love to hear more from.
08:46I don't want somebody to call in and say, I've got tickets.
08:48I'm going to this game.
08:50Yes.
08:50How long ago did they get them?
08:52Are you going, are you traveling?
08:54That's what I want to know.
08:55Yeah.
08:55And what is your summer look like?
08:56How deep are we in on this thing?
08:58Listen, I know what your summer's like in terms of Franklin, Tennessee for baseball tournaments.
09:02I know what your summer's like in terms of Orlando for volleyball.
09:05How many of you actually have the World Cup on the radar in terms of how it affects your summer?
09:13This is a once in a lifetime, the United States, North America hosting World Cup.
09:19What is it going to look and feel like?
Comments