• The Hyatt Regency Times Square hosts "Kickoff to the Final" on Thursday, July 16, from 3 to 5 p.m.

• New York Red Bulls forward Julian Hall, the second-youngest goal scorer in MLS history, headlines the activation.

• The hotel's porte cochere becomes a temporary pitch with turf and professional netting for the afternoon.

• The event runs three days before the World Cup Final and is open by RSVP with a plus one.

Three days before the World Cup Final, the Hyatt Regency Times Square is turning its porte cochere into a soccer pitch. "Kickoff to the Final" runs Thursday, July 16, from 3 to 5 p.m., and the guest of honor is a player who has already made Red Bulls history twice over.

Julian Hall scored his first MLS goal against CF Montreal in June 2024 at 16 years and 87 days old, the youngest goal in franchise history and the second-youngest in league history behind Freddy Adu. In May 2026, he broke another record, becoming the youngest player to score a hat trick in MLS history. He is still a teenager, and he is already one of the names New York soccer fans bring up first.

For the afternoon, the hotel's entrance transforms into an interactive soccer setup: turf, professional-grade netting, and space for guests to juggle, shoot, and take photos before the World Cup Final kicks off across town. Hall will be on-site to open the activation and run a soccer challenge that guests can join, not just watch.

The timing is deliberate. With the tournament's knockout rounds behind it and the final three days out, Times Square hotels are leaning into the moment rather than waiting for it to pass. A rising homegrown talent, on-site and accessible, gives the activation a local hook that a generic watch party would not have.

New York and New Jersey have carried an outsized share of this summer's tournament. MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford is hosting eight matches in total, five in the group stage plus a Round of 32 game, a Round of 16 game, and the final itself on July 19. The semifinals fall elsewhere, at AT&T Stadium in Dallas and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, which makes the final three days before July 19 the closest New York gets to hosting the tournament's marquee match directly.

Times Square hotels have spent the tournament competing for a share of that attention, mostly through screens: lobby watch parties, rooftop viewings, branded cocktail menus timed to kickoffs. The Hyatt Regency Times Square is taking a different approach for its pre-final moment, building a physical activation rather than another viewing space, and pairing it with a player rather than a broadcast.

Midtown has no shortage of World Cup programming this July, but most of it is built around screens. This is built around a person. Hall is not a retired pro doing a paid appearance; he is an active Red Bulls player mid-record-breaking season, and the format (juggling, shooting, a challenge guests can actually play) puts him in the same space as the people who came to see him.

Hall's rise has been fast even by MLS's homegrown-player standards. Born March 24, 2008, he broke into the Red Bulls first team as a teenager through the club's homegrown pathway and has already stacked up two league records in two years: youngest goal scorer in club history in 2024, then youngest hat trick scorer in MLS history in May 2026, at 18 years and 50 days old. For a franchise that has built its academy pipeline around exactly this kind of prospect, giving him a public-facing role three days before the sport's biggest match is as much a statement about the club's future as it is about the party itself.