NEW YORK — World Cup attendances are on track for record highs despite daunting ticket prices and Trump administration travel restrictions. Experts say it is less a reflection of America’s fondness for football, and more a measure of its love of spectacle.

Through 44 matches, total attendance topped 2.85 million, with the average stadium about 99.6 per cent full, according to a Reuters analysis based on Fifa data.

“Americans like big events,” said Dan Rascher, a sports economics expert at the University of San Francisco. “They want to be there for the big moments.”

While this year’s World Cup is bigger than its predecessors — totalling 104 matches, up from 64 — attendance is on pace to break the all-time record well before this year’s 64th game. The existing mark of nearly 3.6 million spectators was set in 1994, the last time the US hosted.

“Part of it is that we have these gigantic stadiums,” said Victor Matheson, an economist and sports business expert at the College of the Holy Cross.

But stadiums in 2026 are also fuller, on a percentage basis, than nearly any World Cup this century, with the possible exception of Germany’s in 2006, according to Fifa annual reports and a Reuters attendance analysis.