‘There’s no price you can put on experience’: Spike pushes back on hesitancy to attend World Cup in Seattle

The FIFA World Cup in Seattle has been marketed as an event with the hype of six Super Bowls, while projections for the city’s revenue range around $1 billion, and the city anticipates 750 million visitors, though none of which appears to be panning out.

Spike O’Neill, co-host of “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio, asked fill-in KIRO host Greg Tomlin if he has bought into any of the World Cup hype, and what his plans are for watching the matches in Seattle.

“The most I’ve bought into the hype on a personal level is I might catch a match, and I think that’s the correct nomenclature, right there, a match on the pitch at some point on my television, but I will not venture within probably 10 miles of downtown while all the proceedings are underway,” Spike said.

From watch parties to single tickets: Spike’s ways to take part in Seattle’s World Cup

Spike urged others to consider the rarity of hosting an event like the World Cup in Seattle, and offered several ways to enjoy the tournament without a ticket to any of the matches.

“Do you ever have a fear of missing out?” Spike asked. “Will you look back one day at your life and say, ‘The World Cup, the largest cultural experience on the planet, every four years, it is the biggest party in the world.’ Will you look back at some point in your life, and think, it came to my hometown, it was in my city, six different opportunities for me to take part in World Cup play.

“Maybe you don’t want to spend the $300 to $1,500 it takes to go actually sit inside Seattle Stadium,” Spike continued. “There are local watch parties all over the place for folks who can’t afford it; there’s going to be a visitor vibe in Seattle. I think it’s akin to what happens when the All-Star game comes to Seattle. Are you going to one day look back and say, ‘I should have gotten off my couch?'”

“It depends on a person’s respective level of interest in the event itself,” Tomlin responded. “I have very limited interest in soccer, but world soccer, I appreciate. I always love it when America is competing against other countries for whatever reason. But this one, I just have limited interest. Now, when it came to the Mariners’ playoff run last year, my life hack is I always try to secure tickets for what I think is going to be the biggest game.”

For any fans looking to take a page out of Tomlin’s book, the bar-none “biggest game” of the group stage in Seattle is the USA v. Australia match on June 19. A single ticket for the game currently ranges around $1,100.

Seattle’s World Cup watch parties offer a cheaper way to take part

Spike noted that, despite the hefty price tag for a single event, he saw it more as an experience to be shared with others, making the sky-high prices worth it for more than just a game.

“A couple of elements of that really rang true with me,” Spike said. “Experiences. There’s no price you can put on experience. You have to take that chance and roll the dice that you’ll build a memory with your family or yourself, or with friends. That’s going to last a lifetime. Another very realistic element of why I think the World Cup, at least in Seattle, hasn’t been the expected six Super Bowls coming to town moment is that it’s not America’s game.

“We’re one of the smaller cities with regard to the host cities in America,” Spike continued. “All these cities are going to have massive World Cup moments, but as a country, America is not South America, we’re not Europe, we don’t have the rabid fan bases, the ride or die mentality of our national team. I think if America’s World Cup soccer team were on the caliber of the best in the world. America would feel differently. We love a winner, and we move on quickly when there isn’t one.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3