2026 World Cup Thread

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BleedGopher

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Why So Many World Cup Tickets Remain Unsold One Month Out​


Only a month remains until the World Cup descends upon the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, and thousands of tickets remain unsold, listed at extremely high prices.

Prices are starting to fall—barely—but FIFA will need a more dramatic drop in costs if it wants to fill stadiums, experts tell Front Office Sports.



FIFA opened its alleged final “last minute” sales window on April 1, saying it would stay open through the tournament. This would be the first time that any member of the public could access tickets straight from FIFA without needing to be selected at random, or go through a federation or special offer.

But FIFA didn’t put up all remaining tickets on April 1. The global governing body made some tickets available that day, but said at the time that “tickets will continue to be released on a rolling basis,” and it has continued slowly releasing more inventory as the tournament gets closer.

Sometimes, FIFA announces its releases, as the global governing body did for two drops on April 22 and May 7. The official announcement came two days before the April 22 drop and one day before the May 7 window. In these cases, fans wait for hours in the virtual queue, and when they finally get access to view tickets, they find prices that are higher than they want to pay, or experience glitches and error messages.

In other instances, the inventory fluctuates without an official announcement. On Monday, some ticket categories had appeared, disappeared, or changed prices from last week’s official drop.

In both cases, FIFA is drip-feeding tickets to a tournament that is already seeing unprecedented demand.

“It’s revenue maximization from FIFA,” Kieran Maguire, author and podcast cohost of The Price of Football, tells FOS. “I think FIFA have abandoned the traditional soccer fan and they’re pursuing a strategy of making as much money as they can, so are therefore creating artificial scarcity in the market by having small drops of tickets.”

Thousands of tickets remain unsold. The issue isn’t a lack of interest—FIFA said in January it received more than 500 million ticket requests—or a lack of inventory. Plenty of fans are interested in buying tickets, and plenty of tickets are still available for them.

FIFA’s problem is that demand does not exist at the prices that are being listed, ticketing expert Jim McCarthy tells FOS. “It would not be hard to sell this tournament, sell every single ticket of this tournament, but the prices are aggressive,” McCarthy says.

frontofficesports.com

Why So Many World Cup Tickets Remain Unsold One Month Out

FIFA is drip-feeding tickets to the public and keeping prices high despite a lack of demand and a large inventory remaining.
frontofficesports.com frontofficesports.com

Go USA!!
 

they're going to try get their fill dollar-wise now and the prices will drop as we go forward. Will just be a question of if international fans can make the trek late as well as how the dollar is going to hold up. It's shaping up to be an incredibly expensive World Cup, but its the most popular sport in the world.

This tactic really sucks for diehard people who are more borderline monetary wise as planning for this type of trip is a once in a lifetime thing you need to plan way out for. Will work out pretty well for US people who are casual fans when there's a ton of unsold inventory as the dates close for those who just want to go watch. atmosphere may be particularly lacking this year however given global travel, city distances between where games are hosted for each team, etc., as compared with the much more easy transit options in Europe/Asia comparatively.
 

Pretty sad that with Canada as a Tri-Host that Montreal does not have a facility that is able to stage games.

Seems silly that only KC in the mid-west made the grade. No Chicago or Detroit? WTF. Not one site within the traditional original Big 10 footprint.
 


Ope3 said:
Pretty sad that with Canada as a Tri-Host that Montreal does not have a facility that is able to stage games.

Seems silly that only KC in the mid-west made the grade. No Chicago or Detroit? WTF. Not one site within the traditional original Big 10 footprint.
Click to expand...
Not to mention how big of a shit show the club world cup was due to weather and using some of those places you're going to avoid torrential downpours and heat extremes you will see on the coasts and in the south
 


Ope3 said:
Pretty sad that with Canada as a Tri-Host that Montreal does not have a facility that is able to stage games.

Seems silly that only KC in the mid-west made the grade. No Chicago or Detroit? WTF. Not one site within the traditional original Big 10 footprint.
Click to expand...
Chicago said no thanks to FIFA
 



Border Gopher said:
Chicago said no thanks to FIFA
Click to expand...

Well that answers the question on my previously uninformed statement. Looks like Detroit had some limitations with Ford Field/pitch size and the city essentially said "the heck with it as well" to FIFA.

Ditto Minneapolis & Indianapolis as well. Apparently South Bend, Madison, East Lansing and Ann Arbor don't make the grade either with FIFA regulations.
 




They’re counting on hammering people for as many dollars as they can of those that are going to travel to come, followed by local markets to absorb late tickets given they’re in major soccer hubs. Really sucks for people who are huge fans who may not be able to go financially given last minute trips are pricy for the other parts, but not really FIFAs MO
 

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