GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — On Monday, the Green Bay Packers announced an exhibition match between European soccer clubs FC Bayern Munich and Manchester City that will take place on July 23rd at Lambeau Field. The match is expected to draw in new visitors not only from around the Midwest, but possibly even the world.
Brad Toll, the CEO of Discover Green Bay says the match, called the USA Cup, will have an estimated economic impact of $10 million.
“It includes indirect spending along with direct spending dollar for dollar for visitors coming in the area," Toll said. "We really expect that this will have a huge impact on the whole Northeastern Wisconsin region.”
Toll says the event is expected to sell out, which will mean a flood of visitors for local hotels and restaurants. Toll says it's the only kind of event that that is able to draw that size of crowd to the city aside from a Packers home game.
Emilee Carpenter, the director of sales at the Home2 Suites by Hilton of Green Bay and the Hilton Garden Inn of Green Bay says that events at the stadium always bring high demand for hotel rooms.
“A lot of people will come just because it is the stadium, just because they love the Packers," Carpenter said. "The business that comes, it’s just incredible to see that everyone loves to just be in Green Bay."
The announcement was made Monday morning, and by Monday afternoon Carpenter said there was already a wait list to reserve a room during the match. She says that's typical for any event that's hosted at Lambeau.
“Typically we fill up within that first day that that schedule comes out," Carpenter said.
Not only is the event expected to bring in a number of visitors on par with a regular season game, but Toll says the other benefit of the match is that it will bring in more first-time visitors to Green Bay.
“One of the the really neat things about this is it’s bringing people that are perhaps first-timers to Green Bay," Toll said. "It brings a new audience outside the NFL fan so it opens new doors, new opportunities. Hopefully people will enjoy their stay, want to come back and visit us again.”
