Neil Freiman

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Speaking of the more bad vibes around the World Cup, just one day out from the start of the tournament, FIFA faces a potentially very embarrassing situation, empty seats at games.

According to a Financial Times analysis, nearly 180,000 tickets are still available on official resale platforms, a glut that highlights FIFA's unusual and controversial ticketing process for this year's event, the biggest it's ever put on.

It's stinging news for your friend who thought they were being smart by snagging a bunch of tickets early on at face value with the expectation of reselling them later for a tidy profit.

The FT found that since ticket prices on the official porter have slid 20% over the past month, when taking the 26% fee on transactions into account, most resales could now come at a loss.

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.