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SEPTA Says 18,806 People Used Broad Street Line After World Cup Opener
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There was an Instagram collab on Tuesday between the City of Philadelphia, SEPTA, World Cup 2026 organizers, the airport, and the Office of Special Events. Each org shared some numbers about the tournament’s first weekend, which featured four days at the Lemon Hill fan festival and Sunday’s Ecuador vs. Ivory Coast game at the Linc:
The SEPTA numbers are pretty good. 18,806 is their reported number of riders coming home from the game, which were free rides because of the Airbnb sponsorship. The reported game attendance was 68,274, which looked like 90% traveling Ecuador fans, so if you take 18,806 and divide it by the total, that’s about 27.5%.
Of course, that assumes that every single one of those people went to the game. We don’t have any way to split out the SEPTA riders from people who went into “Philadelphia Stadium” vs. folks who maybe just hung out at Stateside Live! or whatever, so that’s the asterisk you have to put on it. If you were outside of the stadium for the game, drop me a line and tell me how many people were watching from Stateside or just sort of chilling.
For some context, the BSL transports anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 fans for Eagles games. So 18,806 for this game is in the sweet spot. And outside of having to wait a little bit, which is normal, there were no SEPTA headlines on Sunday or Monday. No major complaints or disasters. The only thing that seemed to be an issue was ticketing and towing for Fairmount residents along the edges of the fan festival.
The reason this feels like a story is because you go elsewhere around the country and see stuff like this:
This is good ammunition for Philly urbanists and anybody who supports better funding for SEPTA, especially with the changes coming to the sports complex over the next 5-7 years. Save these clips, bring them to the meeting. Look at how well Philly is doing this compared to New York/New Jersey, Boston, etc.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com