Fresh off winning the Women's World Cup on July 5, the U.S. national women's team will ride down New York City's Canyon of Heroes for a ticker-tape parade on Friday, July 10.
But the celebration won't stop from there, because when several of the women's players return to their teams in the National Women's Soccer League, they're likely to be seen by more fans. That's because it has been absolute soccer fever with ticket sales booming ever since the American women won the World Cup.
According to ESPN, National Women's Soccer League teams with players from the U.S. women's national team have enjoyed increased ticket sales before and after their World Cup victory. That especially bodes true for the Houston Dash, which features World Cup hero Carli Lloyd as its midfielder.
Since last Thursday, the Dash have sold more than 2,700 tickets for their Sunday home game against the Chicago Red Stars. There's been so much demand to see Lloyd, who scored three goals in the World Cup final against Japan earlier this week, that the Dash will even open the upper bowl of its stadium to accommodate more fans.
"We're probably going to have 12,000 fans there," Brian Ching, the team's managing director, told ESPN. "It will be our highest-grossing game in our one and half years in existence."
And ticket sales are surging for other teams who have stars from the World Cup-winning American squad, as well. Take the July 18 Washington Spirit-Seattle Reign match, for example, which features U.S. stars Ali Krieger, Megan Rapinoe and goalkeeper Hope Solo.
"It's been a very busy past couple of days," Spirit director of ticket sales Rob Bartlett told ESPN about that home game a week away. "We usually reserve 50 field-level seats for our games and we've twice already had to release more of those seats for sale."
The Reign, too, has sold more than $51,000 worth of tickets the past three days for a team that averages $1,000 to $2,000 in ticket sales daily. A rep for the Reign also said in a separate report that there's been a "tremendous surge" in app downloads and merchandise sales as well, although the numbers weren't specified.
Soccer fever ... but let's see how long it continues.
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