The World Cup was once "a chicken shop bonanza that came around once every four years." On days when the South Korean national team played, chicken shop phones rang off the hook even in the middle of the night, and convenience store beer shelves emptied quickly. During the Korea-Uruguay match at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, a flood of chicken orders even caused a temporary service outage in a delivery app. For small business owners, the World Cup was less a sporting event than an economic event that boosted sales.
That World Cup has changed. The North and Central American World Cup opens in three days, but the mood on the streets is not what it used to be. Even ahead of Korea's first match against the Czech Republic on the 12th, it is hard to find any sense of excitement. In fact, many are showing greater interest in the initial public offering (IPO) of U.S. space exploration company SpaceX, scheduled for the same day.
The biggest reason is the match times. All of the Korean national team's group stage matches will be held at 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. on weekdays. It is hard to expect the "World Cup chimaek" of chicken and beer that once packed chicken shops after work. That is why convenience stores are launching lunchtime ready-meal marketing campaigns. They are targeting lunch demand from office workers who will go out after watching the matches.
Deepening chicken shop owners' sighs is the sky-high price of chicken. As supply shrank in the wake of last winter's highly pathogenic avian influenza (AI), chicken prices have risen more than 40% from a year earlier. The burden of delivery fees, driven by the mandatory insurance enrollment for delivery riders, has piled on top of that.
The liquor industry's worries also run deep. As the "Sober Curious" culture of consciously cutting back on drinking spreads, centered on younger generations, the very culture of cheering while drinking is disappearing. In the first quarter of this year, the monthly average per-capita spending on alcohol was 13,000 won, the lowest level since the statistics began. TV sales, which once enjoyed a World Cup boost, have also been quiet.
The disappearance of the World Cup windfall is not simply because enthusiasm for soccer has cooled. It is a scene created all at once by high prices, high interest rates, and changing consumption patterns. The lament of small business owners that "the disappearance of customers is scarier than rent" reflects the felt economy of everyday life, obscured by the semiconductor export boom.
