When people think of cricket, they often imagine a picturesque green in a quiet English village. What they don’t think of is a nightclub in a Brooklyn warehouse filled with thousands of replica shirts jumping and jiving to South Asian house music. But this was the scene in June this year during the T20 World Cup when 7,500 cricket fans prepared for India and Pakistan’s big clash with an all-night dance session.
The two Indian DJs of Indo Warehouse were in the middle of a world tour. “You had 35,000 fans going to the Eisenhower Park stadium for that game,” says Rakesh Patel, the founder of Bharat Army Travel. “There was a hell of a lot of Indians in New York that night, right? And they were all looking for something to do.” Patel’s idea to partner with the organisers turned the event into a sell-out – and made an unforgettable night for his cricket-loving clientele.
Cricket in NYC, the Euros in Germany, the Paris Olympics… 2024 has been a great year for sports tourism. According to the UN’s World Tourism Organisation, sports is one of the travel industry’s fastest-growing sectors – stadium-gazing is as hot a trend as gig-tripping. You don’t even have to be a super fan to do it. For travellers, incorporating a sporting event into a holiday is just one more way to connect with local culture and have an authentic experience of a place.
Nine years ago, Patel headed to Australia to follow the India team on their World Cup campaign with a group of equally passionate fans. They were on an 18-hour drive between Melbourne and Sydney in campervans when they stopped at a small coastal town for something to eat. “We were desperate for some Indian food because we hadn’t found any in so long,” says Patel, “And when we asked at the pub, it turned out the town’s only restaurant was called Kohli’s, after India’s superstar batter Virat Kohli.”
The chef was so delighted when this group of countrymen walked in that he refused to cook from his usual menu and insisted on serving up real home cooking. “He closed the restaurant to eat with us,” says Patel. “Experiences like that just got me thinking that for Indian cricket, we didn't have an official supporters group or organised tours and there was a unique opportunity for us to kind of formulate that.”
The growing affluence of the Indian diaspora has proven a perfect customer base, and the demand has gone far beyond cricket. “A lot of our members say, oh, by the way, can you help us get tickets for Wimbledon, or the Olympics, or for football? There were more Indians travelling to the football World Cups in Russia and Qatar than there were English football fans. And they didn't even have a team in those tournaments.”
The macho culture and behaviour of football still puts many off travelling to games. Anthony Greenidge, a longstanding member of Manchester City’s LGBTQ+ supporters group, is cautiously selective about where he will follow his team. “There's many a game I've wanted to go to, but being Black and gay has stopped me,” says Greenidge.
“When we played Feyenoord in the Netherlands, the racial abuse I got going into the ground was horrendous. And I missed out on going to the Champions League final in Istanbul because we were playing an Italian team in Turkey – I just thought, no, I can't put myself in that position.” He has never watched England play abroad because of the bad behaviour that so often accompanies the fan trips – “we have this real idiocy when we go abroad,” he says.
Men’s football tournaments have long been seen as an excuse for all-day drinking and the kind of trouble that results from it. But the rise in women’s football is bringing a welcome change. Next year, the women’s Euros will be held in Switzerland, and the prospect of a very different kind of fan travel is already emerging. Walking with Women, a tour company owned by sisters Gillian Lunn and Sara Pease-Watkin, are offering packages to female fans who want to combine trips to games with hikes, wine tastings and more.
Lunn, who lives in Zurich, is more used to fielding requests for skiing than football. “But I was on a trip last year, and a whole pile of women were asking, what are you doing for the women's football?” she says. With many of the games taking place in Zurich and others easily accessible by train, Lunn realised she could programme walks and other activities on days in between the most popular matches.
Clients will explore Swiss wine with female vintners and take a boat trip to a Swiss chocolate factory, not to mention a beautiful walk through Zurich’s hill country ending at the Fifa football museum. Accommodation, meanwhile, will be in one of Zurich’s three women-only hotels. “What we find with all of our holidays,” says Lunn, “is that women want to connect with other women of all sorts. So that's the other side of what we're doing.” It’s a far cry from the edgy atmosphere that has defined football travel in the past.
Cost and convenience are two of the most important considerations in sports travel. Often fans will be arriving in cities where hotels and restaurants are at capacity, and taxis and car rental alike are surge pricing. Many of Lunn’s customers want reassurance they’ll be staying somewhere safe and help to navigate a country where transport is known to be expensive.
At Grand Prix Grand Tours, director Simon Mawdsley has identified a marked increase in female customers on their F1 trips since the Netflix series Drive to Survive turned the drivers into global superstars. “When we started the company, a lot of the women picking up the phone were doing things like arranging 50th birthdays for their husbands,” says Mawdsley. “What we're beginning to find is that a lot of our two-person packages are now for two women sharing, perhaps mother and daughter.”
For those who are travelling to watch motorsport for the first time, expert advice is invaluable. “A lot of people instinctively think that going to the Grand Prix is a little bit like going to a tennis match, where you know you turn up at the stadium and find your seat,” says Mawdsley, “But it's not like that. The circuits are usually a fair drive from the city centre – they're also massive. So having the right seats in the right location is crucial.”
F1 has always been a sport and a scene for the ultra-wealthy, and the explosion of interest in F1 has driven prices up at every level – one hospitality restaurant at this year’s Miami Grand Prix charged $290 for a prawn cocktail. “There's no such thing as a cheap weekend at a Grand Prix,” says Mawdsley. “But we want to make sure people have the right package for their budget.
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“At Monaco, for example, there are so many so-called yacht packages, but while the idea of being on the back of a boat sounds super sexy, in reality often it’s not. Is the yacht actually overlooking the circuit? Are you going to see any of the racing? Or are you going to be there with a thousand other people who spend the whole time taking selfies?”
Sarah Merritt, a McLaren superfan, says as prices have risen, travellers have pivoted to races whose host cities offer added value. “It used to be it would be enough to go just for the race but now we're trying to make sure that we make it a holiday as well. Am I going to spend hundreds of pounds for a general admission ticket at Silverstone, or am I going to go to Barcelona, where I’m going to get sunshine and a few days on the beach?”
Sports travel is only set to grow. In their bid to capitalise on new audiences, leagues are scheduling more and more fixtures outside their home nations, from English Premier League games in the US and NBA games in France to major league baseball in Japan. For travellers, says Patel, it’s a way to discover new destinations with people who share your passions: the Bharat Army’s trips have been the start of many long-lasting friendships and even a wedding. “People aren’t necessarily buying a product from us,” he says. “They’re becoming part of something.”