Big occasion football matches are a great crowd puller for pubs and big occasion football matches don’t come any bigger than the Champions League Final.
People like to come together and take in the event with family and friends to experience the excitement of the highs and lows the game will undoubtedly deliver.
This year’s Champions League Final brings an unexpected pairing together, when Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool will compete for Europe’s top prize in Madrid later today.
Unexpected as both semi-finals gave both teams mountains to climb to get to Madrid. Liverpool were 3-0 down after the first leg to a Barcelona team led by Lionel Messi, but came back to win the second leg 4-0, almost unbelievable.
Tottenham after losing the first leg 0-1 at home and then going 2-0 down away to Ajax came back to draw the game 3-3 going through on the away goal rule.
How good will the game be for pubs screening it?
The British Beer and Pub Association has forecast that sports fans will drink two million extra pints at the pub today watching the action unfold.
It’s not only the all-English Champions League final that will pack sports fans into the pub today, the Premiership Rugby final, the Epsom Derby and two matches from the Cricket World Cup are also being screened. This will then be followed by the Anthony Joshua fight in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The extra number of pints bought during ‘Super Saturday’ could provide as much as a £6 million boost to the economy. The Great British pub will be one of the main benefactors of the surge in demand for beer as fans inevitably cheer on their teams at the local.
The taxman will be cheering loudly too on ‘Super Saturday’. Beer duty, the extra tax put on beer in addition to VAT, could mean that HMRC get an additional windfall as high as £1.1million from beer drinkers and pub-goers.
British Beer and Pub Association Chief Executive Brigid Simmonds commented: “Major sporting events provide a great opportunity for pubs to get people through the door and can contribute as much as £5 million extra revenue to the pub trade. Publicans actively promoting the sports they are showing can help increase these benefits too.
“On June 1st, pubs will be able to take advantage of the Premiership Rugby final, Derby Day at Epsom, the Cricket World Cup, Antony Joshua’s boxing match and of course, an all-English Champions League Final. When it comes to watching live sport, only being at a fixture itself can compare with being in the pub. We fully expect Brits to pack out their local on June 1st for a great day of sport.”
It’s an almost impossible call to predict which team will win, but doubtless the pubs in Liverpool or North London will see some extra celebratory beer sales before the day is out.