McAllen’s La Cancha drew 55,000 visitors and generated $4M in economic impact during FIFA watch parties

McAllen’s La Cancha public watch parties for the FIFA Club World Cup generated an estimated $4 million in economic impact while drawing more than 55,000 attendees over 10 matches, city officials said Monday.

The event, held at the McAllen Convention Center District beginning June 11, transformed the venue into an official FIFA public viewing site — McAllen was the only Rio Grande Valley city to receive a public viewing license, city officials said. 

Yajaira Flores, the Director of the McAllen Convention Center District, presented the results during a McAllen City Commission workshop meeting on Monday, highlighting attendance, visitor spending, media exposure and what they described as a successful effort to create a free community gathering space around one of the world’s largest sporting events.

“We were planning for a maximum of 5,000 people a day for La Cancha, and we had much more than that,” Flores told commissioners. 

Attendance steadily grew throughout the tournament, rising from about 3,000 visitors during the early matches to 6,000, then 12,000 before peaking at approximately 23,000 during Mexico’s final match of the tournament.

Flores said organizers ultimately welcomed more than 55,000 visitors over the course of the event.

“Fifty-five thousand people had the opportunity to watch this game wherever they wanted,” Flores said. “They could have watched it at home, they could have watched it at a restaurant, they could have watched it at a bar, they could have watched it on their phones. They chose to watch it with us at the McAllen Convention Center.”

Using mobile location analytics from Placer.ai, the city said attendees traveled from throughout the Rio Grande Valley and across the border. The data also showed more than half of attendees visited restaurants before or after attending the matches, while roughly 30% shopped for apparel beforehand.

“If you went to Academy before going to La Cancha, you would see that it was full of people trying to get lounge chairs, trying to get last-minute shirts to be able to support their favorite team,” Flores said.

According to the city’s analysis, the event:

• Generated an estimated $4 million in regional economic impact.
• Supported approximately 190 jobs and contributed to the creation of 28 additional full-time jobs in the region.
• Generated an estimated $268,000 in federal tax revenue, $68,000 in state tax revenue and $38,000 in local tax revenue.

The city also estimated the event generated approximately $586,000 in earned media value and more than 62 million social media impressions, along with an additional 5 million billboard impressions.

Flores credited attendees for helping the event grow organically online.

“The event became viral,” she said. “Our attendees actually became the influencers that made sure people went out.”

Despite the scale of the event, city officials said La Cancha essentially paid for itself through sponsorships, concessions and food and beverage sales.

“We haven’t finalized the cost yet because we haven’t finalized the event,” Flores said, noting the championship match was still scheduled to be shown Sunday. “Up until now, the event has been able to hit a break even, meaning that it hasn’t cost us anything. The expenses have been covered by the net revenues that the event has generated.”

McAllen City Manager Isaac J. Tawil said profitability was never the city’s primary objective.

“We never had an intent to profit from this,” Tawil said. “This was something that, as a staff, we really felt was something the entire Rio Grande Valley community deserved.”

Tawil said the city would have considered the event worthwhile even if it had required public funding.

“If we spent $30,000 putting this event on for the community, every penny of that was a penny well spent,” he said.

Officials also praised the city’s ability to quickly expand operations as attendance far exceeded initial projections.

“As the event grew, she and her staff literally had days to pivot and plan and execute,” he said. “It was absolutely flawless.”

Flores said the event required rapid coordination among multiple city departments, including police, fire, parks and recreation, public works and emergency personnel.

“Every single one of the departments that we worked with was ready, was able and really provided a safe environment that the community has learned to trust,” she said.

She added that allowing visitors to bring their own water and food helped make the event more accessible during triple-digit temperatures.

“I think it was important for us to make that pivot and make sure that the community was able to come and enjoy it for free and that they did not need to purchase waters or anything at the facility,” Flores said.

Beyond attendance figures, Flores said La Cancha demonstrated how the convention center district has evolved into a gathering place for the community.

“We’ve transformed the brick and mortar of our spaces to really a community space,” she said. “We’ve really been able to get to that third place, right? We go home, we go to work, and the convention center district has been that third place — that sense of community where people feel safe, where they know they’re going to experience something memorable.”

Flores said the success of La Cancha built on nearly two decades of programming at the convention center and nearly 10 years at the McAllen Performing Arts Center.

“It hasn’t been overnight and it wasn’t because of La Cancha,” she said. “We were just able to prove something pretty magical over the last few weeks.”