Cincinnati is getting its first-ever official Premier League watch party this weekend, and organizers picked a team whose colors already match the city's football team. The Stretch, a bar at The Banks downtown, will open its doors at 6:30 a.m. Saturday for kegs and eggs before Hull City takes on Manchester United at 7:30 a.m.
The event is part of the Premier League's newly launched Coast to Coast initiative, which brings official watch parties and activations to cities across the country during opening weekend, according to Cincinnati CityBeat. The Stretch, located at 191 E. Freedom Way and operated by Cincinnati-founded hospitality group Four Entertainment Group, is decorated in orange, black and white for the occasion — the same color scheme as the Cincinnati Bengals, and, as it happens, Hull City itself.
That color match is reportedly why Hull City was chosen to spotlight in Cincinnati for the league's season-opening campaign. The club, promoted back to the Premier League after winning last season's playoffs, said it was excited to bring supporters together in the city for opening weekend and pointed to what it called a passionate and growing community of supporters across the United States.
A Nine-Year Wait Ends at Wembley
Hull City's return to England's top flight was no small feat. The club had been out of the Premier League for nine years before beating Middlesbrough 1-0 in the EFL Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium, with Oli McBurnie scoring the winning goal in the 95th minute, according to the Premier League. Now the club opens its top-flight comeback on the road against Manchester United, with Cincinnati fans invited to watch it unfold live starting at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.
Fifteen Cities, One Weekend
Cincinnati is just one stop on a much larger map. The Coast to Coast Kick Off spans 15 U.S. cities and all 20 Premier League clubs across opening weekend, running from Friday through Monday, with official backing from broadcast partners NBC, Peacock and USA Network, according to Sports Illustrated. Other markets hosting official watch parties include Denver for Arsenal at McGregor Square, Dallas for Chelsea at Cosm Dallas, Boston for Liverpool at Cask 'n Flagon, and Washington D.C. for Manchester City at Hook Hall.
Hoodline has already covered the real trophy touring Denver and Everton's opening-weekend party at Houston's Pitch 25, part of the same nationwide push. The scale of the campaign reflects NBC's exclusive U.S. media rights to the Premier League, secured through the 2027-28 season under a six-year, $2.7 billion contract extension signed in November 2021, according to AP News.
Cincinnati's Soccer Credentials
Organizers designed the initiative to capitalize on heightened American soccer enthusiasm following the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which was co-hosted across North America earlier this summer, per Sports Illustrated. Cincinnati brings its own soccer pedigree to the table: FC Cincinnati won Major League Soccer's Supporters' Shield in 2023, becoming the first team in major U.S. professional sports to go from three consecutive last-place finishes to a regular-season title within two years, according to Major League Soccer.
The push builds on years of incremental testing by the league and its broadcast partner. An April 2024 fan festival in Nashville called Premier League Mornings Live drew roughly 15,500 supporters, and the league's first official U.S. preseason tournament in July 2023 brought six clubs to play eight matches across five American cities, according to The Football Week. That gradual buildup appears to be paying off: the 2025/26 Premier League season was the most-watched in U.S. history, averaging 1.2 million viewers across the NBC broadcast network, a sharp climb from the 546,000 average viewers the league drew during the 2023-24 season, when a March 2024 match between Manchester United and Liverpool set a U.S. audience record with 1.78 million viewers.
For Cincinnati fans, the payoff is a 6:30 a.m. start at The Stretch, plenty of kegs and eggs, and a chance to watch a newly promoted club try to prove it belongs back among England's elite.
