Neil Freiman

Tickets are still up for grabs for seemingly the most in-demand games.

For the US's opener against Paraguay in Los Angeles Friday night, 4,400 tickets were still available for resale at a median price of over $800.

Of course, these tickets could still be gobbled up prior to the game's beginning, but the prospect of the TV camera panning to empty rows at World Cup games would indicate that FIFA's big gamble on ticketing was a huge flop.

For this World Cup, the soccer nonprofit changed everything about the process, maintaining direct control of ticketing and charging higher prices by far than any other World Cup in history.

As the clock ticks down to the opening kickoff, it looks like that could have backfired.

So we've heard a lot.

You've heard a lot from me that this is the most expensive World Cup by far to attend.

Let's put some numbers on that.

So World Cup tickets across America, Canada and Mexico this year cost more than twice as much as they did in Qatar in 2022.

and about four times as much as they did when the US last hosted the tournament in 1994, adjusted for inflation.

And this has been a direct strategy by FIFA.

The head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has argued that the North American market is, quote, a very special market where no one complains about ticket prices when you go to a concert or an NFL game.

He calls this a once-in-a-lifetime experience for North American fans to experience the World Cup and go to games.

So

That's why they've changed up their whole process.

They've introduced things like dynamic pricing, which they haven't before.

And we are used to dynamic pricing here with concert tickets.

And no one likes it.

It's when demand goes up, ticket prices go up.

When demand goes down, ticket prices go down.