It started with an opening weekend of mixed fortunes for the Home Nations and, as we saw with Euro 2020, the real action didn’t really start until the knockout stages – either on the pitch or in the on trade.
Oxford Partnership Market Watch data has already shown the key importance of home nation games in driving footfall and sales. In Euro 2020 all the biggest sales came from games featuring a home nation side and in the group stages weekly sales shifted to be largely on game days, but the real boost came in the knockout rounds and there appears to be no change to this trend in Euro 2024.
In the group stages, England games drove 25.6m pints which is an additional 203 pints per pub leading to a 31.5% uplift in draught sales versus the same days average in 2024. This means pubs earnt an additional £925 per pub in revenue. And in Scotland we saw a similar impact with an additional 170 pints per pub leading to a 21.9% uplift in draught sales versus the same days average in 2024.
+50 extra pints (+18%) were sold per pub in England vs 2024 during the Serbia game
+77 extra pints (+49% ) during the Denmark game
+76 extra pints (+36.2%) sold during the Slovenia game
+67 extra pints (+18.8%) were sold per pub in Scotland vs 2024 during the Germany game
+90 extra pints (+48.4% ) during the Switzerland game
+13 extra pints (+5.6%) during the Hungary game
When England reached the last sixteen back in 2021, weekly sales grew by +3.6% – so how did Sunday’s sales compare? Even better is the really good news!
All eyes turned to England on Sunday’s key game versus Slovakia when we saw a staggering 11.4 million pints sold as pubs benefitted from extra time after Jude Bellingham’s spectacular overhead kick revived not just the teams hopes, but also pubs across the country, with the prospect of a quarter final against Switzerland at 5pm this coming Saturday. This resulted in average uplift of +55 pints per pub (vs. 2023) and an additional +£261 in the till. England’s last-minute equalizer against Slovakia saw draught Beer & Cider sales grow by +22.4% vs. 2023, as 30 mins of extra time and the hopes of a nation keep consumers in outlet for longer as the nail-biting knockout game played out.
In terms of category performance, we saw World Lager +36.2% and Core Lager +17.2%. Apple Cider slightly suffered, declining -3.0% while Fruit Cider was up +47.2%. The standout performance was STOUT +52.8% but it was a strong weekend for all of the major categories, and a welcome boost for the On Trade.
Overall, footfall grew +0.5% for the whole week compared to +3.2% on Sunday. City Centres continued to suffer at a total week level -2.1% compared to growth in Suburban and Rural areas. For Sunday, the key footfall growth happened in Suburban areas, where +4.1% growth was observed, Rural areas also benefitted +2.4% whilst City Centres saw a marginal increase +0.9%
Dwell time grew +9.4% on Sunday driven by Suburban locations +14.6% and Rural Outlets +14.3% as average overall dwell time grew to 138 minutes per occasion. City Centres benefitted the least BUT thankfully still saw a +4.5% increase in dwell time per occasion.
Alison Jordan, CEO of Oxford Partnership, comments:
“We are delighted to now really start seeing the positive effects of this tournament on the On Trade. With everyone cheering England on for the result we all want on Saturday, we are genuinely hopeful for a bumper summer of sales to continue.”
