World Cup Watch Parties Take Over Washington

DC isn't hosting any official World Cup match but the city's still planning a big role in the tournament. The free FIFA fan zone on the National Mall showing every U.S. game including tonight's while downtown parks and local bars host watch parties. But DC is unique from other cities because the expat communities and embassies are often the ones leading the charge. For more on how they're transferring DC's soccer team Axios' Anna Spiegel live with us here on Fox 5. I mean look you go to any bar in DC Anna you're liable to run into a group of Spain fans in one place in Portugal and another and that's what makes it special. Exactly I think you know having all the embassies here having these large expat communities having especially in the suburbs you know huge immigrant communities it's such a special place to watch the world's game. I mean that's not a place that you expect to watch a game is at an embassy but you can do that here in DC what are our embassies doing? Yeah you know a lot of embassies host watch parties especially not necessarily at the embassy itself but you know the cultural institutions at sports bars around the city you know I know where we the Croatian Embassy hosted at Franklin Hall recently you know it changes by week a lot of them decide you know as a tournament goes on and they're winning where they're gonna go so definitely you know great places to check their social media pages. When you when you look at some of these cities where we have the big the fan zones the official watch parties that FIFA is putting out in in the cities where they're hosting matches I guess the advantage to these bars and restaurants is and the embassies for that matter it's spread out across the city so you're not in one concentrated area. Yeah absolutely you know some of the biggest I think also like if you look at Northern Virginia there's a larger Brazilian population and so Shipgarden and Tyson's has said that they had over a thousand attendees or RCPs to one of their watch parties and they had Brazilian dancers live music play of other people there watching different games from across the world. I think that's what's so cool is that every different team kind of picks their own place and then that becomes the home of these teams and to your point Northern Virginia all the way to Maryland DC we've seen everybody fan out across the region and kind of just pick their corner of the DMV as their own. Absolutely and you know you definitely have a lot of you know you look at La Coseca which is the Latin marketplace by Union Market you might have you know a certain set of fans there while over a top Union Market Highlawn you know they're showing every game of that massive beer garden and they have you know World Cup trivia so they're really like you know there's welcoming places for all. In the grand scheme of things I know you have covered extensively at Preaxios just how the restaurant and bar scene in DC has suffered quite a bit are they feeling a bit of a financial boom from all of this? You know I think yes I think that it depends where you are you know I think like you know obviously the traditional sports bars are getting I think a boom from these things I think also there's some unexpected stories like Tallboy and Shaw didn't partner with Kalshi used Kalshi to kind of hedge some bets and cover people's bar tabs and saw a big boom from that so I think you're finding people to do this in a creative ways you know obviously this is also around July 4th America's 250th birthday so you have a lot of tourists in town so I think I'm hearing it is you know definitely giving a boost. That's some good news especially at the summer season where we know things slow down especially for the bars and restaurants Anna Spiegel with Axios we appreciate it thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. Meanwhile let's get to the heart of some of those fan festivities. Regina Ureta is down at Mission Navy Yard.