The FIFA World Cup arrives in the United States on June 11. Forty-eight teams. Eleven cities. Thirty-nine days. An estimated five million fans passing through stadium districts from New Jersey to Seattle.

For retailers, restaurants, and brands operating near a World Cup venue, this isn’t a sporting event. It’s a foot traffic event. We pulled data across 13,000+ McDonald’s locations, 580+ sportswear stores, 5,000+ restaurants and bars, and 1,959 retail locations near all 11 stadiums to find out who’s positioned to win.

McDonald’s: FIFA’s partner is already winning

McDonald’s is an official FIFA World Cup Partner. And the partnership appears to be paying off before the tournament even starts.

Foot traffic to McDonald’s 13,734 US locations surged +12.2% year-over-year in June 2026 — from 69,774 to 78,309 average monthly visits per store. It’s the largest single-month YoY gain we’ve tracked for any major chain heading into the tournament.

This isn’t just seasonal. McDonald’s has been building momentum all year: +1.1% in January, +4.1% in February, +3.5% in March, accelerating to +4.5% in April before the June spike.

Major Retail Brands — June 2026 vs June 2025

Walmart (+4.6%) is the second-largest gainer, likely benefiting from merchandise and kit sales across its 4,582 stores. Dunkin’ (+3.3%) — present within 0.1 miles of MetLife Stadium — is positioned to capture match-day foot traffic at the Final venue.

Not every major brand benefits. Starbucks (-2.8%), Target (-1.1%), and Macy’s (-3.3%) are all down year-over-year in June. The World Cup tailwind appears concentrated in food, convenience, and value retail — not specialty or premium.

Sports bars are already surging

We tracked foot traffic to eight national sports bar and casual dining chains through June 2026. Six of eight are posting positive year-over-year growth — before a single World Cup match.

Sports Bars & Casual Dining — June 2026 vs June 2025

Chili’s at +9.4% is the standout — its strongest month of 2026. Buffalo Wild Wings, the chain most associated with live sports viewing, is up 6.3% with 1,442 locations. Both have the national scale to capture watch-party demand.

Hooters and Fridays are the losers. Fridays has posted declines as steep as -39.8% earlier in 2026. Both chains risk losing share during peak viewing weeks.

The stadium map: 11 venues, two extremes

We mapped every retail, restaurant, and food & beverage location within a two-mile radius of all 11 US stadiums. The interactive map below lets you explore each venue’s trade area, see which brands are nearby, and compare retail density across the tournament.

The retail deserts

The retail strongholds

The kit war: Adidas has momentum. Nike doesn’t.

As Marketing Dive recently noted, Nike and Adidas are on “very different trajectories” heading into the World Cup. Their marketing campaigns reflect it — Adidas’ nostalgic “Backyard Legends” vs Nike’s disruptive “Rip the Script.” But the foot traffic data makes the gap even more concrete.

We tracked monthly visits to every Nike, Adidas, and Puma store in the US — more than 580 locations — through June 2026.

Nike still draws the most foot traffic per store — nearly double Adidas in absolute terms. But Nike has posted negative year-over-year traffic in 16 of the last 18 months. Adidas turned positive in January 2026 and has held there through June.

Store presence across host cities

Los Angeles — where the USA plays its opening match — is nearly tied at Nike 12, Adidas 11. That’s the city where the kit war will be most visible on the ground.

Merchandise retail: Who’s positioned?

Beyond the kit brands, we tracked foot traffic to the retailers that sell jerseys, hats, scarves, and match-day gear.

Merchandise Retail — June 2026 vs June 2025

Academy Sports leads at +4.1%, driven by its strong presence in southern World Cup markets — Texas, Florida, and Georgia. Soccer Post, a niche chain of 67 soccer specialty stores, is up +1.7%. If kit demand surges during the tournament, Soccer Post is the canary in the coal mine.

What history tells us: Plan for weeks, not days

We pulled foot traffic for every retail location within two miles of SoFi Stadium from 2021 through 2023 to study the impact of Super Bowl LVI (February 13, 2022).

The counterintuitive finding: the Super Bowl month itself was not the peak. At 8.1M visits, February 2022 was below surrounding months. Event-day security perimeters and road closures suppressed normal retail activity in the immediate area.

But the sustained effect is clear. The SoFi trade area went from 4.7M monthly visits to a stabilized baseline of 9-10M — roughly a 2x increase that held through 2023.

Key dates for retailers

Methodology

Foot traffic data sourced from PassBy’s Almanac platform. Trade area analysis covers 1,959 retail locations within a two-mile radius of all 11 US World Cup venues. Brand-level analysis tracks monthly visits per store across 580+ sportswear stores, 13,700+ McDonald’s locations, 5,000+ casual dining and sports bar locations, and 3,700+ merchandise retail locations. Visit counts represent estimated monthly foot traffic based on mobile location data, normalized for device penetration. Year-over-year comparisons use consistent store panels. Store presence data reflects active locations as of June 2026.