Overview
- Tickets for the Soldier Field Test are sold out, with coverage reporting a 60,000-plus crowd expected.
- A New Zealand Herald Facebook post claimed the All Blacks sold out the venue and posed whether they could help save US rugby.
- Irish supporters and others quickly countered online, arguing traveling Irish fans and local Irish-Americans will dominate the stands.
- Chicago’s sizable Irish-American community, commonly cited at roughly 400,000 people, is being used to explain the likely crowd makeup.
- The 2016 match at the same venue, when Ireland beat New Zealand and the stadium turned into a sea of green, is driving skepticism of the Herald’s framing.