The report says the issue is not only how many people tune in, but what they do around a game.
That is football’s old domestic ritual meeting a modern systems challenge. Big tournament nights have always changed behaviour; the difference now is the scale of planning needed to manage it smoothly.
The sharper wrinkle appears to be Scotland’s timing. The update says one group game is due to kick off at 2am in the UK, which would create a very different strain on the grid.
Normally, overnight demand is falling. A late-night World Cup match could flatten that drop or briefly reverse it. For operators, that is less about peak-time pressure and more about an unexpected bend in the curve. In energy terms, fixture scheduling suddenly matters as much as formation changes.
There is a modern twist here. The report says Britain could use about 20% less electricity to watch games than it did in 1998, despite population growth, because televisions and devices are more efficient. But the wider tournament is also expanding, with 104 matches, 48 teams and more than five weeks of football.
Dyke said the competition would be “almost certainly be powered by the cleanest electricity in history,” a line that captures the balancing act: higher event demand, cleaner generation, tighter forecasting.
As the tournament gets closer, the next storyline will not just be team selection or knockout brackets. It will be whether the grid can stay as composed as the best midfield controller when the late-night kettle surge arrives.