The World Cup is the greatest and most prestigious sports tournament in the entire world. It happens every four years, and this year the World Cup heads to North America. With high stakes and people travelling from all over the world to catch different games, there is one thing that has made the headlines not in a good way, it’s the prices of the tickets for a single game.
With many different people from all over the world gearing up to make their way to North America this summer, many people want and need the answer sooner rather than later on why the tickets are so expensive. There are many people who will do anything to catch a game or cheer for their country but at how big of a cost does it become a financial question.
The opening game of the World Cup is Mexico vs. South Africa with ticket prices starting at $3,850 Seatgeek. There are not all that many people in the world that can make a financial decision with that big of a price and many people don’t have that kind of money sitting around to spend on a game. Any game that you select at the moment have ticket prices starting at more than $1,000 dollars and that is to sit very far away and high up and they only get more expensive the closer to the field you want to sit. The World Cup Final held at Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, has tickets starting around $10,000 and rising as high as $90,000 for a single seat (Seatgeek).
Gianni Infantino, FIFA president, has broken silence on the ticket prices and is not happy with the prices.
“In the almost 100 years of the World Cup, FIFA has sold 44 million tickets in total. So, in two weeks we could have filled 300 years of World Cups. Imagine that. This is absolutely crazy.” Infantino said (Gianni Infantino words).
The prices of the upcoming World Cup tickets are almost five times higher than World Cup 2022 in Qatar which is mind blowing. FIFA plans to hit back at this crazy situation and a restricted tier of tickets for each game at $60.
There is not one specific reason this situation has happened the way it has, but there are many factors to it. World Cup tickets are exceptionally expensive due to unprecedented demand, with more than 150 million requests for 6-7 million tickets. Tickets are often listed on resale platforms for significantly higher prices, with FIFA taking a 30% cut of these high-priced tickets. Many fans who have applied for tickets for the 2026 World Cup will be looking to sell them for profit on resale sites making the market of the tickets much higher than they should be with the sellers looking to make a significant profit on the tickets.
