Dueling Axes Cincinnati blends World Cup watch party with axe throwing

Dueling Axes Cincinnati opened its doors at 2 p.m. Friday and used France vs. Norway to turn a World Cup watch party into an all-afternoon play. The event, presented with FC Cincinnati, put live match viewing next to axe throwing, a promo team, a mascot appearance, giveaways, fan experiences and cold drinks, with throwing lanes available before, during and after the match.

That mix is the point. FC Cincinnati has built its 2026 Summer of Soccer around the return of the FIFA World Cup to U.S. soil for the first time in 32 years, and Dueling Axes was one stop on a broader calendar of partner bars and restaurants. The club’s lineup also tied into Soccer Celebration events at Fountain Square with 3CDC, all built around live viewings of select matches, food and beverage options, music, entertainment, giveaways and fan experiences.

For Dueling Axes, the appeal is obvious. The Cincinnati venue sits under the Findlay Market parking garage in Over-the-Rhine, at Central Parkway and West Elder Street, and already operates like a hybrid sports bar and activity space. It offers a full-service bar, small-bites and shareable kitchen items, shuffleboard, giant Jenga, giant Connect-4 and more than 30 large-format TVs with game audio. Some viewing and lounge areas do not require a reservation, which makes the place easier to use as a drop-in watch party than a traditional booked lane night.

That flexibility is what makes the World Cup pairing smart business. A venue built on throwing alone has to win a narrow slice of the market. A venue that can sell the match, the bar, the food and the lanes can pull in fans earlier and keep them longer, especially when the television inventory is this heavy and the soccer action is the main event on the wall. FC Cincinnati’s pub-partner schedule put Dueling Axes in that role for Friday’s France-Norway match, while the club’s wider effort spread the same formula across Greater Cincinnati.

FC Cincinnati said it is also building seven additional mini pitches across the region, bringing the total number built or underway to 19. That is the same logic at a different scale: give people a place to gather around soccer, then give them something to do while they stay. Dueling Axes leaned into that model Friday, and the result looked less like a one-off promotion than a test case for what a sports-night venue can become.