If you don’t like football or politics, now really isn’t your time.
I heard on the radio the other day that if England won their match against Slovakia last Sunday – which they did – more people would be in a good mood and therefore more people would likely vote in today’s General Election. I don’t know about that, to me it sounded like a desperate attempt to pull the two stories together.
No matter the turnout for the Election, we can expect a strong turnout for England’s game against Switzerland on Saturday.
While many fans will watch the match in a pub or bar, many more will watch with family and friends at home. I have been invited to my brother’s house to watch the game but unfortunately I am washing my hair!
No matter where they watch, these fans are good news for retailers as GlobalData/Vouchercode research has found that Euro ’24 will bring a £2.75bn boost to the UK economy.
And with the vast majority of fans watching the games from the comfort of their own home, some £1.2bn of this £2.75bn bonanza will come from spending on food and drink.
Easy-to-share pizza is likely to be the most popular food for armchair fans, with £102.8m predicted to be spent on it. Additionally, spending on barbecue staples such as burgers and chicken wings will rise. And then there’s the beer.
While different sources are quoting different numbers for the amount of beer that will be bought – in pubs and in retail – Aldi has released a rather novel figure. Its research, with the help of a professor of cognitive science, no less, found that England football fans spill 4.6 million pints of beer every time Gareth Southgate’s team scores a goal.
Boffins studied online videos of England fans celebrating goals and found that 20% of pints are spilt with 15% thrown in the air and 5% due to spillages. No wonder people buy so much beer!
With all those spillages, maybe fans will be heading to their nearest forecourt store at half-time to top up. Not the ones who have drunk the beer, of course, but their teetotal friends – and there are a lot of those about nowadays. Indeed according to ad firm Red Brick Road, 27% of adults are now non-drinkers
So, whether you love football or hate it, retailers should make hay while the sun (hopefully) shines and provide the fans with what they want whether that be beer, soft drinks, pizza or salty snacks – and make it as easy as possible to find it all during that mad pre-game or half-time dash.
