Whatever happens on the pitch, UK businesses are set to score

The nine-sector basket

Fans aren’t concentrating their World Cup spend in one place. They spend it across the consumer economy, lifting demand at the same time for a wide variety of business types.

The occasion is as much about eating and drinking as it is about the football itself. Groceries top the ranking at £40 per fan, reflecting the prevalence of at-home viewing. Add food and drink eaten out (£38), and the combined eating-and-drinking spend reaches £78 per fan, more than any other pairing in the basket.

Home entertainment technology tells a different story, with only 27% of fans planning any tech spend, but among those who do, the average is £121.

The two patterns call for different commercial plays. Food and drink is a broad, high-frequency opportunity won on volume and convenience; tech is a narrow, high-value one, where the prize is capturing, and trading up, for example using the tournament as a reason to upgrade the TV, soundbar or projector. We're already seeing this play out across the food, drink and hospitality businesses we work with.

Investment is shifting into product development and customer experience to apps and web platforms that capture this kind of discretionary spend. This is particularly important now as it’s happening against a backdrop of consumer caution, which makes capture more competitive.

Matt Foulger Partner

Tax Partner Matt Foulger works closely with consumer businesses and says that he is already seeing this play out across the food, drink and hospitality businesses we work with. Investment is shifting into product development and customer experience to apps and web platforms that capture this kind of discretionary spend. This is particularly important now as it’s happening against a backdrop of consumer caution, which makes capture more competitive.

Average anticipated spend per fan, by category (fan sub-sample):

Gen Z intend to spend the most and their behaviours extend beyond the tournament

Not all fans spend alike, topping the spending is Gen Z (those aged between 18 and 29).  Gen Z state they intend to spend close to twice the £315 overall average at £594. They are also most likely to carry behaviours forward after a tournament, and the most willing to fund their spending using credit.

After previous tournaments, 34% of Gen Z kept following a team they had discovered and one in five kept buying a brand they first encountered during the tournament. This is roughly double the rates across all fans. They are also the heaviest users of buy now, pay later to fund experiences generally, at around 30% compared to 2% amongst Baby Boomers.

For brands, Gen Z is the cohort to win during the tournament and to keep afterwards.

Tom Middleton Partner

Home-hosting spending is female-led

The gender split in World Cup spending challenges something traditional sports marketing has been slow to acknowledge: women may be the primary spenders when it comes to in-home viewing occasions.

Women’s average spend was higher across every home-based category: groceries, home entertainment technology, home and garden improvements and beauty and grooming, while men’s average spend was higher on travel to watch games and eating and drinking out.

Average anticipated spend per fan, by gender:

This maps directly onto viewing behaviour. Men are more than twice as likely to watch alone (29% vs 12% for women). Women drive the social, home-hosting occasion, and that occasion generates the purchase of a wider basket of goods than solo viewing.

For grocers, home improvement retailers and consumer goods businesses, the World Cup audience is not a male sporting audience. It’s a broad consumer audience, with signs that women are driving much of the spending in the context of shared viewing experiences.

Beyond the living room: the out-of-home occasion

The in-home story isn’t the whole picture. More than a quarter of fans (27%) say they are actively planning activities beyond watching at home, this might involve going to the pub, hosting a BBQ, or heading to a public fan zone. These social formats skew sharply young. Gen Z are several times more likely than older viewers to watch in a large group or a public venue than alone.

For pubs, bars and public venues, this is where the World Cup audience congregates outside the supermarket aisle, a younger, more sociable crowd than the in-home viewer. The same six-week window that lifts grocery and home spending also drives hospitality footfall.

There is a twist this time: with the tournament being spread across the US, Mexico and Canada, some matches kick-off in the early evening while others start in the early hours of the morning. The early evening end of this spectrum favours the out-of-home occasion, weekend gatherings and venues that trade late, over casual midweek viewing at home.

By contrast events which start in the early hours of the morning may attract a different audience. The implication being that marquee matches and those which start at a more sociable time may have a greater impact on spending patterns. Should England beat DR Congo which kicks off at 5pm on Wednesday 1 July, they would play at 1am on Monday 6 July in the next round. The difference in consumer behaviour and spending is likely to be significant between the two games.

The mood effect: six weeks, not just 90 minutes

36% of football fans say a big tournament puts them in a good mood and makes them more inclined to treat themselves. This effect is strongest among Gen Z (53%) and Millennials (47%), and weakest among Baby Boomers (17%).

For restaurants, beauty, premium grocery and entertainment, the tournament creates an uplift window that runs for six weeks, not 90 minutes. The build-up, the match and the morning after. The question isn’t how to sell into the game. It’s how to stay in the conversation across the whole tournament.

The impact on mood is larger than what it means for spending, there are wider social benefits. These can range from increased grassroots participation in sport to enhanced wellbeing. These wider benefits can compound through stronger community ties, improved physical and mental wellbeing and the value of a shared cultural moment. The mood uplift presents policymakers and firms with an opportunity to crystallise the benefits from the uptick in enthusiasm to create benefits which outlast the tournament itself.

The long-tail commercial opportunity

The economic story doesn’t end at the final whistle. 42% of fans carry new behaviours forward from previous big tournaments, following teams they didn’t support before, revisiting venues, staying loyal to brands they first bought during the tournament.

Sustained behaviour after previous tournaments (fan sub-sample):

The brand loyalty finding is commercially significant. One in ten fans overall, rising to one in five among Gen Z, become repeat customers of brands they first encountered during a tournament.

Venue revisit rates (13% overall) tell a similar story: over one in eight fans become returning customers at venues they first visit because of a major tournament.

Is this additional spending?

Though the overall anticipated spend on World Cup by UK consumers is close to £11 billion, this comes with a caveat. Much of this spend is not new: it is existing leisure and household budget, redirected toward the tournament and compressed into six weeks. Three things separate the gross figure from the net effect – substitution (spending that moves toward the World Cup largely moves away from other UK spending), import leakage (many big-ticket items, such as televisions, are imported) and timing (durable purchases are often brought forward rather than created).

This is how such events have always been measured. In our evaluation of the London 2012 Games for the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, around £1.1 billion of gross overseas-visitor spending translated into roughly £305 million of net additional expenditure, because most visitors would have come anyway. None of this means the spending doesn't matter, it plainly does for the businesses that capture it. It means the prize is about where the money goes, not how much the economy grows.

What this tells us about the Experience Economy

The World Cup data maps a wider shift in UK consumer spending. Four in ten UK adults are actively redirecting spend from material goods to experiences. The driver they cite most often is digital overload, meaning too much screen time pushing them toward physical, shared experiences. This isn’t a youth phenomenon, either. 44% of 35 to 54-year-olds agree, though it’s most pronounced among under-35s (53%).

How UK consumers are repositioning experience spending:

Among under-35s, 40% say experiences would be the last thing they cut in a downturn. Experience spending is moving from the discretionary column toward something closer to essential.

National accounts data backs this up. ONS family spending figures released this month show UK households increased spending on recreation and culture in real terms, even as broader discretionary budgets came under pressure. Sports admission, leisure subscriptions, classes and equipment hire rose 29–35%. People are deliberately choosing experiences.

When asked what they value most about the experiences they prioritise, 38% of adults cite creating lasting memories and 36% cite spending quality time with loved ones.

9% say they attend experiences primarily to feel part of a community or shared moment – one of the smaller drivers we measured.  But a World Cup delivers that feeling almost by default, whether or not it's top of mind when people are asked why they go to things. The brands and venues that understand this, and build around it, are the ones that will still be talking to those customers long after the tournament ends.

Methodology

• Based on a survey of 2,000 UK adults, conducted by Opinium on behalf of Grant Thornton, June 2026
• £10.9 billion spend was calculated using the following methodology:
• 1,260 of the 2,000 survey respondents identified as football fans (63%).
• Applying that proportion to the UK adult population gives an estimated 34,664,019 football fans.
• Multiplying this by the average anticipated spend (£314.70) results in a projected total spend of approximately £10.9 billion.