28th June 2026
There was a lot of Hype about how the world cup would help pubs and hospitality businesses but has it turned out to be true.
The evidence so far suggests the answer is yes and no.
The hype before the tournament has generally proved justified for pubs showing England and Scotland matches, but the benefit has been much more concentrated and uneven than some of the headlines implied.
The good news
There is now quite a lot of evidence that football has genuinely boosted the hospitality sector.
Before England's opening game:
Pub bookings were up almost 300% compared with the equivalent day a year earlier.
UKHospitality forecast sales during the group stage would be around 40% higher than normal.
Around 29% of UK adults said they expected to watch at least some matches in a pub, representing hundreds of millions of pounds of extra spending.
Actual trading data has broadly backed that up.
For example:
England's opening match increased draught beer sales by more than 55% compared with a normal June Wednesday.
England's second match generated a 77% increase in draught beer and cider sales, despite finishing as a draw.
Scotland's matches also produced strong sales north of the border, with some weekends seeing more than 12 million pints sold across Great Britain.
But the picture is more nuanced
This doesn't mean every pub is suddenly booming.
The biggest gains have tended to be:
pubs with large screens
sports bars
town and city centres
venues taking bookings
pubs showing England or Scotland matches
Meanwhile:
quieter village pubs without sports coverage have seen much smaller benefits;
pubs have often been busier only during the matches, with trade falling away afterwards;
many matches involving other countries have attracted relatively little interest.
The tournament is therefore producing spikes in demand, not necessarily sustained growth across the entire sector.
Costs still matter
There is another important point.
Many pubs are selling significantly more beer—but they are also facing:
higher wage costs
higher National Insurance contributions
higher business rates for some operators
increased food and drink costs
continuing energy bills
A busy World Cup evening helps cash flow.
It does not remove those underlying cost pressures.
That is why hospitality organisations continue to argue that tax and business cost reforms matter far more than a few weeks of football.
A wider economic lesson
I think there is an interesting economic lesson here that fits with many of your recent blog themes.
The media often reports that:
"The World Cup will boost the economy."
In reality, much of this is redistributed spending, not entirely new spending.
Suppose a family has £100 of disposable income this week.
Without the World Cup they might have:
gone to the cinema;
eaten in a restaurant;
visited a local attraction; or
bought something online.
Instead, they spend that £100 in the pub watching football.
The pub gains.
But another business may lose.
So while the hospitality sector benefits, the effect on the economy as a whole is often much smaller than the headlines suggest.
The net economic gain comes from genuinely additional activity—for example:
overseas visitors spending money in the UK;
people making extra trips they otherwise would not have made;
increased employment;
or consumers spending more overall rather than simply shifting where they spend.
For a country hosting the World Cup, those gains can be enormous.
For a country like the UK, watching the tournament from afar, the benefits are real but much more modest.