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Laura Williamson

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
251 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

That is just so prohibitive for the average person.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

It's an incredible amount of money before you've added on hotels and travel, etc., etc.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

So the dynamic pricing has been very controversial because it also doesn't distinguish between โ€“ they're called supporter fans in FIFA language โ€“

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

between fans who have been to every game that their team has played for the past 10 years, for example, and somebody who lives in Philadelphia and quite fancies going to a World Cup game.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

You might think, well, that's just tough luck.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

If the demand's there, that's what happens.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

But it's a very different approach for football in general.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

And I think that's why it's caused so much upset, because you're not being rewarded for loyalty, if you like, or for being an expert about your team.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

So that's been very, very controversial and has upset a lot of people.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

Yeah, Henry has been incredible in terms of the rigorous ways reported this process.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

And another point that he's made in an article on Monday on The Athletic is a lot of this has come because the process has been so opaque.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

So FIFA can do what they like ostensibly.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

They are the World Cup organisers.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

So as you referenced there, we've heard examples of people thinking they're buying football

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

VIP hospitality tickets and then actually when the ticket seat and row number comes through it's category one which is a very very different experience and I think even going back to sort of September that was the first time that information about ticketing for this tournament was released and that was only in September you know less than a year to go before kickoff and

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

And then there was the sort of right to buy fiasco, if you like, which was where you paid an additional fee to have the right to buy a ticket because FIFA were banking on there being such high demand, which there was.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

Then the dynamic pricing kicked in and the sort of initial prices shot up by an average of 35% for, I think, 95 of the 104 games.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

And then people have realised what tickets they've got.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

And as you say, they're not in the area they thought they were.

Fresh Air
How sky-high ticket prices, war & politics could impact the World Cup

Then there's also the resale market.