The World Cup final will be played at MetLife Stadium across the river in New Jersey, and the tickets are priced for a once-in-a-generation event most New Yorkers will only ever watch on a screen. So Queens built a screen big enough for the whole borough.
Governor Kathy Hochul cut the ribbon on the official New York and New Jersey World Cup fan fest at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the same complex that hosts the US Open. Louis Armstrong Stadium, where tennis fans normally pay a premium to watch the world’s best, has been turned into a free public viewing site screening the tournament’s group-stage matches. There is no ticket and no MetLife price tag, just the games on a giant screen in the middle of the most diverse place in America.
The location matters. Corona, Flushing, and the surrounding Queens neighborhoods are home to enormous Mexican, Latin American, and immigrant communities, the people who grew up with this tournament as a national event. When the fan fest opened, thousands packed in to watch Mexico beat South Africa 2-0 in the tournament’s first match, and the place reportedly went off the way a Mexico match goes off in the heart of Queens.
That is a very different scene from the corporate hospitality boxes at MetLife, and on purpose. Organizers and the state pitched the fan fest as the inclusive side of hosting the World Cup, a way to give the New Yorkers who actually live here a real stake in an event whose biggest moments are happening behind some of the most expensive tickets in sports. Close to a million visitors are expected across the run of it, by the projections being cited, and the small businesses around the park stand to catch a serious wave of that foot traffic.
There is a fair point here too. A free fan fest is also the consolation prize for a city hosting the world’s biggest sporting event while most of the actual revenue and access floats past its own residents. It is a genuine gift to the borough and also the cheap seats to a party thrown largely for other people.
Either way, if you are anywhere near Queens this summer, go. The fan fest is free, it is at the USTA center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and it is screening the group-stage matches, a straight shot up the 7 train to Mets-Willets Point. Bring the family, bring the flag, and go watch the one part of the World Cup that was actually built for you.
