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Chapter 1: How is the podcast aiming to improve financial literacy in New Zealand?
Generate is supporting my vision to improve the financial literacy of 100,000 Kiwis by sponsoring Keep the Change. Cheers, Generate. Head to generatekiwisaver.co.nz forward slash change to find out more. Well, welcome in from the World Cup 2026. At the time of recording this, I'm standing, looking out over a pool in Fort Worth, America. Texas, baby. Yeah!
Okay, okay, there's a cowboy in the background there. About two in the morning, I believe, in New Zealand at the moment, so really getting messed around on the time zones. But today we are off to, we being myself and my fiancé, off to the England versus Croatia game, which should be crazy. We saw last night on the telly that I think there was...
3,000 Croatians doing a march yesterday just because it's what you do apparently when you get into town and you get your big Croatian flag out. And 80,000 people rumoured to be going along today. It's really hard to articulate or even just get the scale of football internationally, but once you're here...
Chapter 2: What is the significance of the World Cup 2026 for the host cities?
It is just quite all-consuming or surrounding you. Like all of the bars have got football playing, as you'd expect, but instead of doing a little bit of reading and watching of some mini docos and stuff on the flight and trying to
get my head into it it seems like they're really leaning into hosting it and hosting it really well and making sure that everybody has an amazing time and probably that the economy can benefit from shaking some dollars out of people's pockets as well so there's just about with the time zones it seems like there's about three to four games a day um with the extended format of the world cup now as well with more teams being a part of it but obviously our journey started
in Los Angeles. We actually did the real Kiwi thing of getting off the plane, going and having a margarita down the pool, Andrew with the big Samoan tat, and then heading off to Symphony. But cool to see that performance outside of New Zealand. I've never actually been before, but I can see why people get involved in that. And, yeah, so many Americans getting along to that.
So they did an outstanding job with that. It's very easy to get into things here. I think they're just probably so used to the scale of,
organising events and things that everything seems to move really seamlessly but then there was just sport everywhere with football and then the UFC as well and I think someone was talking about NASCAR as well but basically bars sort of opening at 10 and people would be in there watching their favourite team so there is
people rolling around everywhere in football kit and just really embracing it I think I read somewhere that there's 1.5 billion people watching the opening game it's 1.5 billion people which is pretty crazy so we headed off to SoFi Stadium on the I can't remember what day it was to be honest it was a Monday? Okay, good.
So I think it's Wednesday here today, but it would be Thursday in New Zealand. Hopefully Money Mo goes out at 9am on Friday. Jeez, I thought I'd be able to make a bit more content and record podcasts and stuff, but you just don't really have time to by the time you're watching football games and having a couple of seltzers and then trying to catch some sleep to do it all again the next day.
Anyway, we head off to the New Zealand game. We went to a pre-meet-up bar, Tom's Watch Bar. There were hundreds of Kiwis. It's pretty incredible to see how many people are here. Once we got into the stadium, we were certainly, as New Zealand supporters, overwhelmed by the support for the Iranian team.
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Chapter 3: What experiences did the host have while attending the England vs. Croatia game?
Every time they got the ball and started to go on attack, It was something, listening to the noise of the stadium. But if you ever get a chance to go to SoFi Stadium, then highly recommend getting in the mix with that. That is an incredible stadium. I think I was reading before, it's like an $8 billion build or something. Again, just the scale and volume.
and infrastructure and just how they do things over here is very mind-blowing. I suppose you've got 330-odd million people. Not my first time to America, but, yeah, it just blows you away at the scale to which they do things. But littered all through this stadium was bars, and, you know, you're probably paying. I think I took a photo. I'll see if I can keep recording whilst...
I was pulling up that photo, but of the price of beers and the stuff that you could buy. But there was actually a very limited menu, but once you were in there, there was a lot more to it. So Coca, the official sponsor, they want you to pay with your visa as well. But ice creams, $9.50. US chips, $5.75. Nuts, $7.25. Candy, $6.50. Didn't sample any of that. I'll give you the tip.
Sparkling soft drinks, $7.75. Water, $5.25. Sports drinks, $7.75. Didn't sample any of those either, interestingly.
Chapter 4: How does the atmosphere in American sports venues compare to New Zealand?
Now down to the craft. import beer, $21.50, so that's stellar, I believe. That's US dollars, so probably times that by about 1.8 at the moment. Hard seltzer, $20. Now, fortunately, I found these pouched frozen margaritas, and they were exceptional. They weren't on the menu, but should I tell you, they were $36 a throw.
That's US dollars as well, so about $50-something to have a frozen pouched margarita with your wacky straw straight into it. But anyway... It is what it is. You're on the trip of a lifetime and you have to accept the conversion. But man, it makes you realise just how cooked our New Zealand dollar is and how far it doesn't actually go when you start to come to a country like this. Even...
Checked into a hotel. Okay, we need your card. Oh, cool. $500 US holding fee. Just in case, who knows what happens in that room. But hopefully we'll be getting that pending transaction back. But the football, absolutely outstanding. And there's been some good games so far. Some of the big key players are starting to fire now.
your messies etc getting a hat trick that was pretty incredible to see there was a watch party here in fort worth last night at about 9 p.m american time with everybody dressed up in argentinian kit watching that i'd say there'd probably be about 2 000 people there
And they were very, very happy, but they sort of have two massive screens set up, probably even more to be fair, but there's a huge, I don't know if it's like sort of the central part of Fort Worth, but then an open air bar, which looks like they've just set it up for this, or maybe it's the, I don't know, but people were... climbing into a couple of ales as well.
But the New Zealand game was incredible. I think that too, you know, I had an expectation of if we got a goal, I'd be up and about and I'd be a very happy lad and I'd be making the trip all that worthwhile. Not that it wasn't going to be anyway, but to get a goal so early, especially the Palmy lad as well, how good. Get it, Eli. Sir Eli now, I think he is. He's been knighted already.
They're not going to wait until the next fucking King's birthday or whatever it is. They've just given it straight to him, so that's good to see. Please fact check that's not true. But yeah, to get a goal like that, shit, the Kiwis were up and about. And then to draw it to all, I mean, gee, you would love to see them win a game. Oh, it would be something.
But just to get a couple of goals past a team like that, I think is pretty incredible. I think Iran might be ranked 20th in the world. And I don't... Are we in the top 100, Taz? Okay, we're in the top 100 apparently. But we're like very much the outsiders. So...
I don't think many people were expecting us to win that game, but to be able to hold our own and actually score a couple of goals on the big stage is pretty incredible. Eli, I think, would be the first to ever do that, to get a couple of goals. I think we've only had a handful of people to score a goal, but certainly not to get a double.
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Chapter 5: What unique challenges do Kiwis face while attending international sports events?
We just bumped into a Kiwis Lad who is from New Zealand who has lived in Australia for most of his life and then the UK. But he, yeah, sounds like he's bouncing between the UK to go and watch the Arsenal game the other day and back to here and he's off to the England game today. But he was pretty surprised that... we've got tickets to this one.
So it's going to be incredible to see what the atmosphere will be like today with England versus Croatia. And then we're here in Fort Worth for a few days. I've actually had a Kiwi reach out to me yesterday saying he's been here, I think he's a 21-year-old lad, been here a year and absolutely loving it. So interesting place to move to from New Zealand. And where was I going with that? Fuck knows.
Sorry. I'm starting to think about, do I need to get off this and start getting ready? I'm starting to get the hurry up in the background here. But trying to pack as much into this 20 minutes as I can. Anyway, after this game, and then we stay here for a little bit, and then we rejoin, I guess, the New Zealand game. So New Zealand play Egypt and Belgium to round out their pool games.
I can't remember which one is first. Egypt. And then I think the final game falls on a weekend for New Zealanders. So you definitely want to get in the mix and watch that final game. And that's in Vancouver. So we fly to Vancouver from here. I think Dallas, excuse me, to Vancouver is about a four and a half hour flight.
So yeah, it'll be back into the mix with the New Zealand jerseys on and really getting stuck into it. Anyway, I hope everyone is good back there in NZ or wherever you're tuning in from. A little bit of behind the scenes. If there's anything you want to know about, then drop me a line on Instagram.
I've been trying to put a bit of content up there as well and just keep the old content rolling out whilst I'm away as well. So there's plenty of podcasts and stuff to get stuck into there. But shit, if you do get the chance to come to America at some stage in your life, it's definitely not what our media and our country make it out to be like.
And I haven't heard one person mention the president's name since I've been here, apart from Kiwi people. I haven't seen anything about politics, even flicking on the TV.
I saw him at the fires.
Oh, okay, yeah, he was at the UFC fights. Yeah, that's a fair point. But other than that, people don't really seem to talk about it. And what else? Everyone's been super friendly. It's almost embarrassingly how we may perceive Americans to be, but then a lot of them are just so hospitable.
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Chapter 6: How do ticket prices and event costs impact fans at the World Cup?
Generate Kiwi Saver scheme has sponsored Keep the Change to help me reach more people and make this a reality. Cheers to Generate. Head to generatekiwisaver.co.nz forward slash change to find out more.