Nomad World Pub Will Host Month-Long World Cup Celebration

Nomad World Pub will bring the energy of the FIFA World Cup to Brady Street this year, with plans to host a series of events for the month-long soccer tournament.

From Nov. 20 until Dec. 18, the Nomad, 1401 E. Brady St., will show virtually all of the matches, accompanied by coffee and espresso drinks, beer, wine and cocktails. Matches will also be screened at the pub’s sister bar, SportClub, 750 N. Jefferson St.

Nomad’s World Cup parties have been a Brady Street tradition since 1998, but this year’s event will be a little different.

The tournament will kick off Sunday, Nov. 20, making it the first World Cup held during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter months. The start date was pushed back to avoid host country Qatar’s scorching summer temperatures. Here in Milwaukee, hot weather will be the opposite of the problem for spectators, who could face single-digit temperatures, wind and precipitation.

“It’s been a real struggle to figure out how to approach this year’s tournament with the winter weather, but we know our loyal fans expect us to pull off something special,” said Nomad owner Mike Eitel in a statement.

In an effort to beat the chill, fans can expect “festive, tempered outdoor spaces” and a large, heated tent — also known as The Igloo — for outdoor viewing. Festivities will also include food and beverage areas, game-day contests, giveaways and DJs.

For larger matches, like U.S. versus England, the pub will pull out all the stops with a street party, outdoor bar, barbeque, vendors, DJs and a big screen. The Nov. 25 match coincides with Black Friday. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.

Aside from weather woes, Qatar is located in the Arabian Standard time zone, eight hours ahead of Milwaukee time. And though sports fans got a taste of early-morning spectating on Oct. 9 when the Packers game in London started at 8:30 a.m., that’s nothing compared to what the World Cup has in store. Some games are scheduled to start as early as 4 a.m., a full two hours before bars are legally allowed to serve alcohol. As a result, Nomad will not screen matches with a 4 a.m. kickoff time.

With less than six weeks to go until the opening match, Nomad is reopening its indoor bar for European soccer matches on weekend mornings. For the previous two years, fans have been confined to the outdoor patio due to the pandemic.

In 2014, the last time the U.S. men’s team qualified for the tournament, a crowd of more than 15,000 forced the closure of Brady Street during the game. In 2018, the U.S. did not qualify and Eitel rented the former La Fuente restaurant in Walker’s Point. The Nomad hosted watch parties for the 2019 women’s tournament on Brady Street.

More information about the individual games will be available on the Nomad World Pub Instagram page and website.