You might have to be a billionaire to snag last-minute tickets to the World Cup final at New York-New Jersey Stadium, widely touted as the most expensive sporting event ever held in the United States. That’s because the price of a coveted seat at the venue soared past the $2 million mark 24 hours before kickoff.
Ticket prices are soaring on the resale market as Lionel Messi’s Argentina side take on Spain and teenage superstar Lamine Yamal.
By Friday, nearly all tickets appeared to have been sold, with several listed on FIFA’s sales platform for about $32,000 each.
There were no last minute tickets available on the site on Saturday. But on FIFA’s resale platform, tickets were on sale for just under $10,000 and up to $2.3 million.
The final concluded the World Cup, and fans were willing to shell out more money than ever for a seat at the quadrennial show, as ticket buyers faced exorbitant prices that baffled even the most cynical.
FIFA’s gamble paid off amid concerns over visa restrictions and insecurity in the United States, and it was a fitting end to a tournament that has tested the limits of fan spending.
“What FIFA did a really good job of was determining what the demand was because people were paying such exorbitant prices for almost all 104 games,” said Scott Friedman, a ticket sales expert who previously worked for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“A year ago, we never thought people would travel with Trump’s ICE stuff and other conspiracy material. But this is by far the most popular tournament in the world, and to FIFA’s credit, FIFA set the fees high and people ended up paying them.”
An analysis of FIFA’s attendance data found that more than half of the 72 group matches were sold out, with most other matches having just a few hundred fans, Reuters reported. According to FIFA, approximately 99.7% of available seats were filled for matches in the qualifying stage.
The data dispels initial concerns that FIFA’s notoriously high fees would turn away fans after empty seats were seen around Guadalajara Stadium for the June 11 game between South Korea and the Czech Republic.
Rise in price, increase in demand
But as the tournament expanded to its largest-ever size with 48 teams participating, so did fan interest.
Initially, team event ticket prices were set at $575 each, more than double the most expensive group tickets available during the 2022 tournament. However, due to FIFA’s dynamic pricing system, many ticket holders paid much higher amounts.
Hundreds of tickets for Wednesday’s final were still available, priced at just over $7,000 on FIFA’s platform, but the surprising revelation sparked speculation that FIFA had finally gone too far with its pricing.
But the large number of seats available was likely the result of a process known as “slow ticketing,” Friedman explained. This is a common practice at mega-events where organizers limit inventory to incentivize buyers.
“They can act as if they’ve already sold the seats and trickle them in accordingly to obviously increase market demand,” said Friedman, who runs the Ticket Talk Network, which is dedicated to investigating how seats are bought and sold for sports mega-events.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, there’s only a few tickets left in this section, so you better buy it now.'”
“Nobody knows how this works.”
The opaque “dynamic pricing” process has also proven to be a boon for FIFA as the sport continues its precarious evolution from a working-class competition to a pastime for the wealthy.
FIFA introduced dynamic pricing for the first time at the tournament, allowing ticket prices to fluctuate based on real-time demand and other factors.
“Part of the reason for the frustration over the last few months is that no one really knows how this is going to work,” said Adam Elmahatov, an associate professor of industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia University.
“People are happy to embrace dynamic pricing. We do dynamic pricing for airline tickets, we do dynamic pricing for clothing purchases. But for an event this high-profile, I think transparency goes a long way.”
FIFA introduced a small number of lower-priced tickets in response to the backlash over prices, as politicians including New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani lobbied to make affordable seats available to local residents.
The quality of the tournament has also stimulated demand, with the top four nations advancing to the semi-finals for the first time since the rankings were introduced, with Sunday’s final likely to see 39-year-old Messi play his final World Cup match.
“The concept of fair pricing here is complicated because entertainment is not a necessity,” Elmahatob said.
Fan appetite continues
The lax rules surrounding the U.S. resale market, which give used ticket sellers all but the power to set their own prices, have only accelerated the drain on pockets before and after the Games.
The U.S. rules contrast with co-host Mexico, where resellers are prohibited from listing more tickets than they spend, and other countries as well.
A rush of listings for the final week has driven down prices on resale platform SeatGeek, with the average ticket for the finals listed for more than $11,000 as of Friday. Still, the numbers easily made the finals the most expensive event sold by the platform, 8 percent higher than the 2024 Super Bowl, SeatGeek said.
“What we’re seeing with this year’s World Cup is that demand fluctuates from round to round and as the opponents are revealed,” said Chris Lyden, SeatGeek’s senior director of marketing.
“The appetite for this tournament has remained very strong from the group stage to the knockout matches.”
World Cup for the “happy few”
But human rights experts warned that the tournament remains out of reach for many fans.
The Sports & Rights Alliance said supporters from several countries were unable to obtain visas for what FIFA president Gianni Infantino had promised would be the most inclusive World Cup.
“It was a World Cup for a happy few,” Ronan Evine, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, told reporters.
“Norwegian and Scottish nationals living in Europe have enough purchasing power to travel to the United States, do not require a visa to enter the country, and can afford exorbitant airline ticket prices.”
