A new survey from eDreams ODIGEO, released today, maps the travel habits of American sports fans with unusual precision - and the portrait that emerges is of a consumer willing to reorganize their financial life around a game.

The poll, conducted by One Poll on behalf of eDreams ODIGEO between March 10 and March 24, 2026, drew responses from 9,000 people across six countries: France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. Of those, 2,000 respondents were based in the United States. The study is one of the larger cross-national surveys of sports travel behavior published in 2026, and its international scope allows direct comparisons that single-country research cannot produce.

According to eDreams ODIGEO, 46% of American respondents said they are willing to travel nationally for a sporting event. That figure places the United States at the top of the international dataset - well above the global average of 34% and far ahead of Portugal, which recorded just 24% on the same metric. The results frame national travel not as an unusual commitment but as the default posture of the American sports fan.

American football dominates, but age shapes the picture

Sport preference data within the study reveals a clear hierarchy. According to eDreams ODIGEO, 57% of American respondents said American football is the sport they would travel furthest to watch live. The peak demographic for that figure is adults aged 55 to 64, among whom the share reaches 69%. The Olympics ranked second at 38%, driven by 25-to-34-year-olds, 44% of whom placed it at the top of their list. Basketball came third at 35%, with the strongest concentration among the 18-to-24 age group, where the figure climbs to 51%.

The contrast with the global dataset on soccer is striking. Globally, according to eDreams ODIGEO, soccer ranks first among sports driving long-distance travel at 53%. In the United States, it sits at just 25% - the lowest soccer interest of any country surveyed. Portugal illustrates the other extreme: 74% of Portuguese respondents said they would travel furthest for soccer.

These generational and geographic contrasts carry real implications for the travel advertising sector. A 55-to-64 American household planning an American football trip represents a different booking profile than a 22-year-old flying to a basketball event. Planning horizons, hotel tiers, ancillary spending, and loyalty program activity diverge considerably across those segments - all of which feed into the audience data that travel advertisers use to target campaigns.

Lifestyle cuts: the United States leads on sacrifice

The section of the eDreams ODIGEO survey covering personal sacrifice offers some of the study's most notable numbers. According to eDreams ODIGEO, 37% of American respondents said they would cut back on daily luxuries - including eating out, streaming subscriptions, and new clothing - to fund a sports trip. That figure is the highest recorded across all countries in the survey, above the global average of 31% and more than double Germany's result of 18%.

The gender breakdown adds granularity. According to eDreams ODIGEO, women in the United States are more likely than men to make lifestyle cutbacks, at 40% versus 34%. This inverts the pattern seen in international travel willingness, where men (26%) are more likely to cross borders for sports than women (16%).

Financial sacrifice runs deeper for a subset of respondents. According to eDreams ODIGEO, 19% of Americans said they would dip into long-term savings or emergency funds to attend a marquee sports event. A further 14% indicated they would exhaust all remaining annual paid leave for the year. On that last metric, men (18%) are notably more willing to spend their vacation budget on a sporting event than women (11%).

Taken together, these numbers suggest that a meaningful segment of American sports fans treats live attendance at major events as a budgetary priority that overrides other spending categories. For travel advertisers, that behavioral signal is consequential: demand for sports travel is not purely discretionary in the conventional sense.

"Sports-cations" and the trip extension pattern

According to eDreams ODIGEO, 45% of American respondents said they add one to two extra days to a sports trip to explore the destination. That is the highest percentage globally for that duration, compared to a global average of 39%. Women (49%) lead men (41%) on the preference for shorter extensions. Men, by contrast, favor the three-to-four day extension at 43%, compared to 36% of women.

The prevalence of these extensions matters to booking economics. A fan who adds two days to a football trip becomes a hotel guest, a restaurant visitor, and a potential retail customer in a way that a same-day attendee does not. The trip extension data gives destination marketing organizations and hospitality advertisers a basis for understanding how sports anchors broader tourism spend.

Early bird behavior and bucket-list budgets

Booking timing data in the eDreams ODIGEO survey challenges assumptions about the spontaneous sports traveler. According to eDreams ODIGEO, 60% of American sports tourists described themselves as "early birds" - people who book their travel the moment their team or athlete is officially confirmed for an event. Only 20% identified as "last minute pros" who wait for secondary market deals or price drops.

Budget data aligns with this commitment. According to eDreams ODIGEO, 53% of Americans said they would spend the equivalent of a full summer vacation - flights and a high-end hotel - on the right bucket-list sporting event. A further 29% capped their spending at the equivalent of a local staycation or road trip.

The "early bird" figure at 60% has direct relevance for digital advertising strategy. A traveler who books immediately after a team's qualification is searching for flights and hotels within a very narrow window - sometimes hours after a result. Advertisers who can reach that user in the moment of intent, rather than during a consideration phase that may never materialize, hold a structural advantage. This dynamic is directly relevant to how travel platforms use first-party data for programmatic targeting. Expedia Group and Magnite announced in April 2026 a partnership linking 200 petabytes of traveler intent data to programmatic channels - a move explicitly designed to reach high-intent travelers at the moment they become bookable.

International travel: men, margins, and limits

According to eDreams ODIGEO, 21% of American respondents said they would travel internationally for a sporting event. The gender gap is pronounced: 26% of men versus 16% of women. This gap may reflect differences in the types of events each group prioritizes - the survey data shows women favor the Olympics at above-average rates, an event that moves to different international locations, while men skew toward American football, which remains almost entirely domestic.

The 21% international figure, while lower than national travel willingness, still represents a significant addressable market given the size of the American population and the spending levels the survey documents. A sports traveler willing to cross borders and stay in a high-end hotel is among the higher-value customer segments in the travel industry.

What the data means for travel advertising

The survey arrives at a moment when the infrastructure for reaching sports fans through digital advertising is becoming more sophisticated. GumGum launched an integrated sports marketing platform in October 2024 combining contextual advertising and sponsorship analytics across the pre-event, live, and post-event lifecycle. The platform was built around the premise that sports fans engage with sports content across many surfaces - not just during broadcasts - and that advertisers benefit from reaching them across that entire arc.

The eDreams ODIGEO data adds demand-side texture to that infrastructure picture. A consumer base where 60% books immediately on qualification, 37% is cutting other spending to fund a trip, and 45% adds days to extend the trip represents an audience with concentrated intent and traceable purchase behavior.

Microsoft Advertising and Epsilon announced in January 2026 a partnership that achieved two times higher return on ad spend in a travel vertical pilot campaign, by integrating offline signals - credit card spending at airlines, hotel loyalty program enrollment, and travel booking patterns - with search advertising. The mechanism is precisely what the eDreams ODIGEO survey implies is needed: a way to identify the 60% who book immediately, not after an extended browse.

eDreams ODIGEO itself has been an active participant in debates about the fairness of digital advertising markets in the travel sector. In March 2024, eDreams ODIGEO joined a coalition of independent platforms calling on the European Commission to act on alleged Digital Markets Act violations by Google, specifically challenging Google's self-preferencing of its own travel search products in EU search results. The company's investment in consumer research can be understood partly in that context: building detailed evidence of how sports fans book, and where, supports arguments about who captures value from sports travel demand.

Google's recent merger of travel ad formats into standard Search campaigns via AI Max is a structural change that bears on how sports travel advertising is served. Travel advertisers previously operated within dedicated campaign types; they now gain access to AI Max's automated targeting and URL expansion within standard search infrastructure. For brands trying to reach the 60% who search immediately after a qualification result, the ability to use AI-expanded keyword matching and automated landing page routing matters.

Cross-country comparisons in context

The eDreams ODIGEO survey's value lies substantially in its cross-national design. Single-country surveys can document behavior but cannot tell marketers whether the behavior is typical or exceptional by global standards. This one can.

On every major metric of sports travel commitment - national travel willingness, lifestyle sacrifice, trip extension, and early booking - American respondents lead the international field. The 37% lifestyle sacrifice figure, which surpasses the global average by six percentage points and more than doubles Germany's result, is particularly notable because lifestyle spending decisions reflect priority, not just preference. A fan who stops going to restaurants to save for a game has made an active trade-off; that is structurally different from a fan who says they would travel if prices were right.

The soccer disconnect is worth holding separately. American consumers at 25% interest in soccer-driven travel are not merely below average; they are the lowest-interest market surveyed. This shapes which sports content and sponsorships will activate American fans versus European ones - a relevant distinction for any brand running multi-market sports advertising. The sports content environment in which a contextual ad is placed matters as much as the audience data underlying it.

Methodology and limitations

The survey was conducted between March 10 and March 24, 2026. The polling firm was One Poll. The sample covered 9,000 respondents across France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States, with 2,000 US-based respondents. According to eDreams ODIGEO, the study used an online polling methodology.

As with any consumer survey, self-reported willingness to travel or spend does not equate to actual booking behavior. The gap between stated intent and realized purchase is a persistent challenge in travel research. The "early bird" classification, for instance, is self-assigned - respondents described their own booking style rather than having it verified against transaction data. These limitations do not invalidate the comparative findings, but they should inform how marketers weight survey data against behavioral signals from booking platforms.

Timeline

Summary

Who: eDreams ODIGEO, a Madrid-headquartered online travel company listed on the Spanish stock exchange (BME: EDR), commissioned the research. The respondent base consists of 9,000 consumers across six countries, with 2,000 Americans.

What: The survey documents American sports fan travel behavior across five dimensions - distance willingness, sport preferences, personal sacrifices, trip extensions, and booking styles. Key findings include 46% national travel willingness (highest globally), 37% lifestyle sacrifice rate (highest globally), 57% preference for American football, and 60% early-bird booking behavior.

When: The poll was fielded between March 10 and March 24, 2026. The findings were released today, June 2, 2026.

Where: The survey covered respondents in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. The findings were distributed via Business Wire. The data is relevant primarily to the United States market in terms of sports fan behavior, though the international comparisons give the domestic findings context.

Why: The data matters for marketers and advertisers because it quantifies the intensity and timing structure of sports travel demand. A consumer base where 60% books immediately on team qualification and 37% cuts other spending to finance the trip creates a concentrated, high-intent audience. That audience profile intersects directly with the travel advertising infrastructure - first-party data partnerships, contextual sports marketing platforms, and AI-powered search campaigns - that the industry has been building through 2025 and into 2026.