Grab your banners and get ready for some English football, Chicago.
The Premier League announced Sunday it is coming to Soldier Field in July for its Summer Series exhibition tournament, the first time its storied teams will meet head-to-head in Chicago, and the latest high-profile event to put the city on the international sports stage.
Chicago is one of three U.S. cities hosting the returning preseason tournament, which will also visit New Jersey and Atlanta. Four clubs – AFC Bournemouth, Everton, Manchester United and West Ham United – will play a round robin series of matches over one week.
The series kicks off Saturday, July 26, at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Chicago is the second stop, with an evening doubleheader Wednesday, July 30, at Soldier Field, where West Ham United takes on Everton, followed by Manchester United vs. AFC Bournemouth. The final leg will take place Sunday, Aug. 3, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
The announcement was made Sunday afternoon during halftime of NBC’s live broadcast of the Manchester United vs. Arsenal match. NBC Sports holds the exclusive U.S. television rights to the Premier League, whose regular season runs from August through May.
The Summer Series will be broadcast nationally on NBC and its cable networks as well.
In September, the Premier League soccer fan fest drew a record 15,646 attendees to Lincoln Park for a weekend early morning watch party, with 10 live matches broadcast al fresco on nine large-screen TVs. Fan enthusiasm played a role in the decision to bring the real deal to the city and Soldier Field, the lakefront stadium that may soon be the former home of the Bears.
“The fans came to watch the matches, to see NBC broadcast live, get a picture with the trophy, meet legends,” Akash Jain, a former NBA, NFL and MLS executive who was named U.S. managing director of the Premier League in 2023. “And it just showcased the appetite that they have for the Premier League clubs and our players.”
This is the second Premier League Summer Series in the U.S., with more than 265,000 fans in four East Coast venues watching Chelsea emerge victorious during the inaugural tournament in July 2023.
The English soccer exhibition is the latest boost to Chicago’s standing as an international sports city. Rugby powers Ireland and the New Zealand All Blacks are set to face off in a much-anticipated rematch Nov. 1 at Soldier Field. When the two teams met there in 2016, Ireland scored its first victory over New Zealand after more than a century.
The rugby rematch, announced last month, sold 50,000 seats on the first day and is essentially sold out, according to Kara Bachman, executive director of the Chicago Sports Commission.
“We’re bringing the best soccer and the best rugby in the world to Chicago, all within a couple of months,” said Bachman. “Chicago is the best sports city in the U.S., and we’re vying for that title worldwide.”
The city will certainly be center stage this summer, when NASCAR returns for its third Chicago Street Race during the July Fourth weekend in another nationally televised sporting event.
The soccer and rugby invasion comes as the Bears seem ever closer to pulling up stakes and leaving Soldier Field for a new stadium in Arlington Heights.
Meanwhile, Chicago is participating in a kind of football exchange program after the Bears beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 35 to 16 in front of nearly 62,000 fans last fall at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the eponymous home of a Premier League club.
Bringing in four Premier League clubs for a doubleheader at Soldier Field could be an equally big draw for Chicago, regional and international fans. Ticket registration is open, with presale starting Thursday and general admission sales beginning Friday morning. Prices start at $77, with one ticket covering both matches.
The four clubs are promoting travel packages to the U.S. for their supporters, while fans are expected to drive in from neighboring states for the unique opportunity to see a Premier League match in person.
“We’re going to get a wide range of fans that follow the Premier League and are passionate about their clubs,” Bachman said. “I expect a sellout, and there’s going to be a lot of excitement around the teams being in Chicago.”
While it will be the first time Premier League teams have ever faced each other in Chicago, they have played one-off exhibitions against clubs from other leagues in the past.
Most recently, Chelsea and German football power Borussia Dortmund played to a 1-1 tie in an August 2023 friendly attended by 48,000 fans at Soldier Field.
In July 2011, the Chicago Fire took a surprising lead over Manchester United before falling 3-1 to the Premier League club during an exhibition in front of a then-record 61,308 fans for the MLS team at Soldier Field.
It took 12 years before the Fire would break that attendance record with a 4-1 victory over Inter Miami in an October 2023 MLS match. More than 62,000 fans came to Soldier Field that night, many to see Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi, who had recently signed with Miami. But Messi missed the match because of a leg injury.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
