If you bill it, they will come
\n New Jersey
\nSunday\u2019s final caps a FIFA World Cup where fans were willing to shell out more than ever for a seat at the quadrennial showpiece, as ticket buyers confounded even the greatest cynics in the face of sky-high prices.
\nIn the match at New York\/New Jersey Stadium \u2014 widely billed as the single most expensive sporting event ever played in the United States \u2014 Lionel Messi\u2019s Argentina face Spain and their teenage superstar Lamine Yamal.
\nIt is a fitting end to a tournament that has tested the limits of what fans will spend, with FIFA\u2019s gamble paying off after concerns over visa restrictions and domestic unrest in the United States.
\n\u201cWhat FIFA did a very good job of was determining what demand would be because people [were] paying these absurd prices for just about all the 104 matches,\u201d said Scott Friedman, a ticketing expert who previously worked for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
\n\u201cA year ago, we didn\u2019t think people would be travelling with Trump\u2019s ICE stuff and all this other conspiracy stuff. But it\u2019s the most popular tournament in the world by far globally, and FIFA, to their credit, they set the prices high and people ended up paying them.\u201d
\nA Reuters analysis of FIFA attendance data found that more than half the 72 group matches were attended to capacity, with most others only a few hundred fans short of a full house. Around 99.7 per cent of available seats were filled during the preliminary stage matches, FIFA said.
\nThe data erased early concerns that FIFA\u2019s infamously steep prices would put off fans, after swathes of empty seats were seen around the Guadalajara Stadium for the June 11 match between South Korea and the Czech Republic.
\nFIFA reported an attendance of 44,985 at the nearly 46,000-seat stadium, but empty seats seen by a Reuters witness around the arena seemed to justify critics\u2019 biggest fears.<\/p>\n
Higher prices, higher demand
\nAs the tournament expanded to its largest-ever field, however, with 48 teams involved, so too did interest among fans.
\nPrices were set initially at $575 a ticket for group games \u2014 more than double the most expensive group ticket available during the 2022 tournament \u2014 but FIFA\u2019s dynamic pricing system meant that many ticketholders paid far more.
\nHundreds of tickets were still available for the final on Wednesday, priced at a little over $7,000 on FIFA\u2019s platform, a surprise fact that prompted speculation over whether the organisation had finally gone too far with its prices.
\nBut the batch of seats available was likely the result of a process known as \u201cslow ticketing\u201d, Friedman explained, a common practice in mega-events in which organisers restrict inventory to motivate buyers.
\n\u201cThey can act like they already sold their seats and kind of just dribble them in accordingly, to obviously increase market demand,\u201d said Friedman, who runs the \u2018Ticket Talk Network\u2019, dedicated to exploring how seats for sports mega-events are bought and sold.
\n\u201cLike \u2018Oh, there\u2019s only so-and-so amount of tickets left available in the section, I better buy now\u2019.\u201d
\nBy Friday, nearly all tickets appeared to be sold, with a few listed on FIFA\u2019s sales platform at around $32,000 apiece.<\/p>\n
\u2018No one really knows how this works\u2019
\nAn opaque \u201cdynamic pricing\u201d process has also proven a boon for FIFA, as the sport continues its uneasy evolution from a working-class game to a pastime of the wealthy.
\nFIFA introduced dynamic pricing for the first time at this tournament, allowing ticket prices to fluctuate based on real-time demand and other factors.
\n\u201cOne reason for the frustration over the last few months is that no one really knows how this works,\u201d said Adam Elmachtoub, an associate professor of industrial engineering and operations research at Columbia University.
\n\u201cPeople are willing to accept dynamic pricing \u2014 we deal with it for airfare, we deal with it even [for] buying clothes \u2014 but I think when it\u2019s such a high-profile event, transparency will help a lot.\u201d
\nFIFA introduced a small number of lower-cost tickets in response to backlash over prices, as politicians, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, lobbied for local residents to have access to affordable seats.
\nA high-quality tournament also spurred demand, with the four top-ranked nations in the semi-finals for the first time since rankings were introduced, and Sunday\u2019s final will feature the 39-year-old Messi in probably his final World Cup match.
\n\u201cThe notion of what is fair pricing here is complex because entertainment is not like a necessity,\u201d said Elmachtoub.<\/p>\n
Fan appetite holds up
\nLax rules around the resale market in the US have only served to accelerate the pocket-emptying around the tournament, with second-hand ticket sellers largely empowered to set their own prices.
\nThe rules in the United States stand in contrast to co-hosts Mexico, where resellers are prohibited from listing their tickets above what they spent \u2014 and much of the rest of the world.
\nA flood of final-week listings brought prices down on resale platform SeatGeek, with the average ticket for the final listed for more than $11,000 as of Friday.
\nStill, that figure easily made the final the most expensive event that the platform had sold, 8pc above the 2024 Super Bowl, SeatGeek said.
\n\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing with this year\u2019s World Cup is that demand fluctuates with every round and every matchup reveal,\u201d said Chris Leyden, senior director for marketing at SeatGeek.
\n\u201cThe appetite for this tournament has held up remarkably well from the group stage through the knockouts.\u201d<\/p>\n
World Cup for \u2018a happy few\u2019
\nHuman rights experts warned, however, that the tournament remained out of reach for far too many fans. At what FIFA President Gianni Infantino had promised would be the most inclusive World Cup, supporters from multiple countries were unable to obtain visas, according to the Sport and Rights Alliance.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a World Cup for a happy few,\u201d Ronan Evain, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, told reporters. \u201cThose in Europe, Norwegians, Scottish, who have enough purchasing power to travel to the US, don\u2019t need a visa to enter the country and can afford the extortionate ticket prices.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you bill it, they will come New Jersey Sunday\u2019s final caps a FIFA World Cup where fans were willing to shell out more than ever for a seat at the quadrennial showpiece, as ticket buyers confounded even the greatest cynics in the face of sky-high prices. In the match at New York\/New Jersey Stadium […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n