Over the past four weeks, Seattle hosted six World Cup matches featuring teams from eight different countries. Fans from around the world traveled to Seattle to cheer on their team and enjoy the Pacific Northwest. Seattle stepped up to the challenge of hosting 750,000 visitors by implementing temporary changes to make their experiences as wonderful as possible. Before the first kickoff, several outlets ranked Seattle as one of the best World Cup host cities in 2026. Thanks to the Pioneer Square Pedestrian Zone, countless watch parties, and a disregard for parking availability, Seattle showed that it deserved those high rankings. Now that the last match in Seattle is over, it is time to use the experiences from the past four weeks to create lasting changes that all Seattleites can enjoy.
Highlights
While the whole city was abuzz on match days, a few amenities stole the spotlight.
Waterfront Park
Seattle’s newest flagship destination was a hit. The park saw over 400,000 unique visitors between June 11 – 21 and likely more than a million people over the past month. The boardwalk and bike lanes were busy, especially on match days, with people shopping/dining, enjoying the views, and checking out the various pop-up events. Alaskan Way was not as busy and was even closed to car traffic temporarily on Monday.
Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Reign FC, and RAVE Foundation hosted a watch party on a floating barge at Pier 62. The barge had a limited capacity but thousands of people watched the screen from Overlook Walk.
Pioneer Square
The oldest neighborhood in Seattle was at the center of the action. Thanks to its proximity to the stadium and Seattle’s oldest pedestrianized street, Pioneer Square has hosted watch parties for almost every World Cup match. On match days in Seattle, SDOT pedestrianized about 14 blocks around Occidental Park and the stadium. This allowed people to enjoy the game without worrying about getting hit by a car and let food trucks easily serve customers in the street. In addition to the big screen, Occidental Park featured a mini soccer pitch, beer garden, and lots of restaurants.
Seattle Center
Home of Seattle most iconic landmark, Seattle Center did not disappoint. Seattle Center hosted indoor and outdoor viewing parties, lots of restaurants, and several world-class attractions that made it a one-stop-shop for many visitors. While Seattle Center is a short trek from downtown, the monorail and improved Metro service made it easy to access.
Westlake Park
Located in the heart of downtown Seattle, the newly renovated Westlake Park offered a convenient location for many in the city. The park featured comfortable chairs near the screen as well as the usual picnic tables, play structures, and other amenities further back. Food trucks provided a variety of dining options nearby. The Downtown Seattle Association is hosting watch parties throughout July at Westlake Park for various World Cup matches, as well as select games for the Mariners, Storm, Reign, and Sounders.
Transit
None of the above would have been possible without a robust transit network. King County Metro and Sound Transit went above and beyond to ensure everyone could get to and around Seattle safely, efficiently, and reliability. The USA vs Australia match helped set Link and Water Taxi ridership records. Link carried over 1.5 million trips across the six match days, including a one-day record of 309,000 passengers on Monday, July 6 for the USA vs Belgium match.
Key Lessons
The World Cup gave Seattle an excuse to try new things. Now, city leaders should take what worked well and implement permanent changes across the city for the benefit of everyone in Seattle.
People Need Community
The clearest observation from the various watch parties around Seattle is the draw to be part of a community. Fans did not sit in the hot sun on the Overlook Walk because it was relaxing, they did so because they were with other fans. The same is true for fans at Pacific Place, Seattle Center, Pioneer Square, the CID, Westlake Park, Pike Place Market, and Pier 62. As many of our interactions with other people have moved online, participating in shared experiences with other people is important. Seattle should continue to host in-person events/watch parties for Seattle’s sports teams, movies, and even popular TV shows.
Parking is Optional
On the busiest days in downtown Seattle this summer, the city reduced the number of parking spots available. Instead of driving, almost everyone walked, biked, or rode transit to get where they were going. The shops and restaurants in Pioneer Square did not lose business because parking was reduced. Instead, they were busier than ever. The same can be true across the city. SDOT should not let parking concerns limit Seattle’s potential. If non-driving modes are limited at a specific destination, the city should focus on building up infrastructure to support sustainable transportation options. This can including building safe bicycle infrastructure and/or funding additional Metro service.
Streets are for People
Despite significant improvements in the city’s bike network and transit infrastructure, Seattle has been stagnant on almost all pedestrianization efforts. Pike Place Market is in a year-long battle with itself over pedestrianizing the block inside the market. U District Advocate’s plan to pedestrianize The Ave for three weekends this summer was rejected by the City (advocates appealed this decision and will have two events in the Fall). Even Seattle’s “Festival Streets” are open to car traffic 95% of the time in a given month.
The Pioneer Square Pedestrian Zone that SDOT established during match days show that local businesses can survive, and thrive, without vehicle access to their front door. Streets without cars are safer, quieter, and encourage longer visits (meaning more money spent at local shops and restaurants). It is time for Seattle to remove car traffic from more streets in Pioneer Square and in every other neighborhood.
Great recap. It felt truly freeing to be down in Pioneer Square, walking aimlessly all around the area and not having to worry about cars careening into me.
Taking the ferry over, hearing the roar of the crowd from it after USA’s first goal vs. Australia, and walking over to the pedestrian zone is something I won’t soon forget.
The point about community/social gatherings is spot on, too. The vibes were great all around and I want more of it.
Born and raised Seattleite here – I lucked out and snagged reasonable tickets to attend a match, did the march beforehand (BTW – Bosnia fans really came out in numbers – very inspiring!), attended a few watch parties and I frequently commute through downtown daily – so I have been in the thick of things for several weeks off and on.
This has been a lot of fun and the energy around it has been electric. I’m sad to see it winding down BUT I am inspired to push for us to do more things like this! Community watch spaces alone has been really cool! Across the board – Seattle has been getting rave reviews as a host city because of all these things we are doing right (transit, waterfront, walkability, stadium proximity to other things, etc.).
For all the things we have room to improve on – in this moment we certainly can pause and reflect/enjoy the success on this one. I hope we take this energy/momentum and use it to our advantage. I personally loved it.
I’ve never watched professional sports much: I’ve seen two each of soccer, hockey, and baseball games decades ago. But I went down to look at Occidantal Park during the US-Australia match (half the park was filled, and not a good view from the back), and then checked out Pacific Place (small line outside, on a one-out-one-in basis) and bagged it. I went to Pike Place Market for my weekly food shopping, and happened to encounter a screen on Pike Place itself, so I watched the end of the match there.
For US-Belgium I went to Westlake Park, but with the sun beating down I decided on Pacific Place instead. I went in 1 1/4 hours early to make sure I could get in, and found a spot on the 3rd floor.
I liked the community viewing sites, and I’d watch a few more sports matches if they continue.
Funny to see this posted on a day when the Light Rail melts down. Seattle has the political will to make the city nice when the world is watching, but as soon as it’s over we’re right back to normal.
Oh the irony right? Haha I took a Lime Glider from downtown to U District for work today to skip the mess.
At least they managed to get it after the World Cup. The first three match days seemed to be flawless: I heard no complaints about ST or Metro. The last three had smallish Link disruptions in the hour before the match; well, it’s not surprising they couldn’t make it 100% reliable when they’ve had so many problems.
Link’s reliability is the #1 issue with our transit system as it exists today.
Actually… I don’t think so. Despite all the embarrassing service interruptions, Link is far more reliable than the buses around here.
Outage is ongoing; updates in roundup article’s comments.
Various thoughts:
Seattle certainly showed itself to be an amazing place to international visitors — and to domestic visitors with foreign ancestry.
The system also felt “clean”. (so were the streets most of the time.) If cars are kept presentable, riders are more considerate about not being messy. I think that this needs to be highlighted.
And the community gathering aspect is very true. I hope it inspires leaders to emphasize having them every several weeks.
The Link openings were also recent community gatherings, and except for an anticipated modest Pinehurst opening this fall there will be no more for several years. With such event popularity, I think that ST should consider creating several annual events around the system. Maybe a weekend art show at several stations? A genre-themed music performance day? An international food truck festival? Watch parties for a Seahawks away games? And here’s a new idea — a meet the candidates day before elections!
Of course the concepts are useless if Sound Transit Link service is unreliable — like it is this morning. Making sure that the system is running reliably and the cars are clean is basic.
Bellevue has an annual arts festival at Bellevue Square. Seattle supposedly has an arts festival although I don’t know anything about when or where. So those could be starting points.
The Bay Area has started hosting events like BART Prom to incorporate transit as a community gathering point itself, rather than only a tool to get to events. Seems like a pretty good idea to emulate, given that hosting events on ST property at places like Star Lake or Marymoor Village is likely affordable, easy to permit, and gets riders out to stations that they otherwise rarely go to.
” I think that ST should consider creating several annual events around the system.”
Judkins Park could become an amazing location for community festivals, music, art, or any type of random celebrations.
“The system also felt “clean”.
Sigh, I’m in South America again and the cleanliness of the Metros is astonishing when compared to Seattle. Anybody leaving garbage or making a mess on a train or in a station would be immediately socially ostracized. People treat their metros with great respect.
Well said! If folks are feeling inspired to create streets for people, get involved with the Seattle Streets Alliance which is working on projects like this around the city: https://www.streetsalliance.org/get-involved/ways-to-get-involved/
I used light rail (line 2 from the South Bellevue P&R to attend the USA – Belgium match. I have to take issue with the general impression given here of a well working transit system. We waited for over an hour and a half at the King Street station after the match trying to take light rail back. We finally gave up and took a ride share service home (at an inflated price). My personal experience with depending on Seattle light rail to attend an event like this one was not a favorable one.
Don, if you were waiting at King Street Station to take the 2 Line back to South Bellevue, you were waiting at the wrong place, and that’s why it never showed up.
Well it was ID, close enough…
King Street Station serves Amtrak trains. You should have gone to International district station which is two blocks east.
That’s what I said in my reply. Believe me, I was at the correct station. Along with many, many others.
Having 4 cars per train is woefully inadequate for moving this number of potential riders without extremely lengthy delays.
There really shouldn’t be a problem with moving that many people. 4 Link cars is as long as Chicago’s 8 car L trains. The stadium only holds so many people, which is the same no matter what event is held there. Furthermore, it was an evening weeknight game, so there should be plenty of capacity by the time the game was over.
My suspicion is that SoundTransit was running less frequent evening trains instead of the schedule the event required.
Before TriMet’s budget disaster, at the end of Blazer games it was not unusual to stand on a platform along NE Holladay Street and see 4 trains waiting to enter Rose Quarter. When one train would leave Rose Quarter, another would slide into the platform almost immediately behind it, sometimes no more than 100 feet separating them. Sure, they needed a bunch of extra trains in service to do this, but federal mandates about maintaining a fleet of spare cars doesn’t apply to special events.
I don’t understand why SoundTransit, with its vastly larger budget, isn’t able to handle this type of thing by using these same methods.
@Glenn
Lumen seats 3.5x as many people as Moda, and the people outside the stadium need transportation as well. Pioneer Square and the waterfront were both packed during the games.
Video of the crowds: https://youtu.be/CugmVTk9IKc?si=eGVJcTK982Y0FDJ2
But how frequently was Link actually running?
I’ve seen nothing that indicates Link was running especially high frequency, like they used to do with MAX.
Supposedly running trains every 8 minutes.
It takes a while to move the 309,000 people who took light rail on July 6. My sister raced to the Symphony station when Belgium scored goal #4, and got on the first train (which was crowded). By contrast, we waited 1.5 hours to enjoy the atmosphere for a while, recognizing that light rail would be a zoo, at first. By then we got on light rail easily. Those of us who have attended past big sporting events understand these crowd dynamics, which are unavoidable for such a huge event. The system worked VERY well…you just had to understand how the system works when 300,000 people are trying to get on the train at the same time.
I understand how the system works. We considered walking to an upstream station, but were advised not to by transit workers because of the block watch events North of the stadium. We were fairly quick to get to the ID station and were not really all that far back in line. The line moved ok but slowly for a while. Then it simply stopped. Those who stayed at the stadium for an hour or two got to join at the end of a much longer non-moving line.
5.4 million riders in June, average of 180K/day, easily the busiest US light rail system. Almost as busy as BART (which is heavy rail and has more track miles).
Great recap! It’s always interesting to see what a major event like the World Cup reveals about a city’s transportation system. Hopefully the lessons learned will help make transit even better for future large events. Thanks for breaking it all down so clearly.