COLUMBIA, S.C. — As Liverpool and Manchester United prepare for kick-off at Williams Brice Stadium, local businesses have seen the impact of the rivalry game all day and weeks before Saturday's match.
“People from all over the world coming to travel to Columbia; it’s incredible,” John Fossing said.
Fossing is a bartender at Market on Main in downtown Columbia. He said the restaurant has had all hands on deck preparing to welcome guests into the restaurant.
“We’ve just had a huge rush of people, it’s nice to have the crowds back,” he said.
Fossing said business has slowed for the summer, but this match is increasing foot traffic.
“When USC is out for summer it definitely dwindles down a little bit but with the resurgence of people coming back, with all the foreigners that we've met coming in town, with just people traveling from all over the nation coming in town, it's been awesome meeting a lot of people, a lot of good business and it's been great recently,” he said.
Soccer fans need places to eat and rest after the big match. Marcus Munse from Hotel Trundle said the hotel is nearing full capacity.
“Ever since we found out about the game coming here, of course, we've been super excited and we saw the bookings coming in pretty much immediately. We've had maybe one or two rooms left running up to the game,” Munse said.
“This is a great way to just kind of ramp back up after summertime," he added. "Now, we'll have this game coming in, which helps kind of give us a good push and then we'll see the move in time for the university and all that corporate travel start to come back again.”
More than 70,000 fans were scheduled to attend the sold-out match, and local businesses said this greatly benefits the city.
“It's a great way to bring that attention to Columbia, especially when you talk about these teams going to huge cities like LA and Philadelphia, and then number three is Columbia,” Munse said. "To get that focus on our city is great and get those out of state people coming here and seeing what great things Columbia has to offer. You can't put a measure on it."