Sam Fenwick

500 miljoonaa ihmistä sopimuskysymyksiin vuonna 2026 FIFA Football World Cupin kanssa, mutta siellä oli vain 7 miljoonaa asemaa. Olen Sam Fenwick Barin Hotel Footballissa Old Traffordin rannalla Manchesterissa Yhdysvalloissa.

A stadium on one side, a hotel built by former players on the other. The walls are covered with photographs of footballers from around the world, stars who draw fans and money from every corner of the planet.

ja yritys ympäri ympäri täällä yhdessä paikassa, mikä on tietenkin asia, koska tänä kesänä peli menee globaalisti. 48 joukkoa, 104 peliä Yhdysvalloissa, Kanadassa ja Meksikossa. Suurimmat maailmankorkeat koskaan. Hei, mitä voin saada sinulle? Voinko saada hieman laagaa, kiitos? Suurimmat maailmankorkeat eivät ole katsojia paikoissaan. He ovat paikoissa, joilla on näköjärjestelmä,

ja heidän tiiminsä. FIFA toivottavasti tekee melkein 9 miljardia dollaria torun mukaan. Joten kuka maksaa sitä? Ja missä kaikki se rahaa menee? Tässä on Business Daily BBC World Service. Tänään seuraamme rahaa FIFA 2026 World Cupin takia.

FIFA toivottavasti tekee melkein 9 miljardia dollaria tästä joukkueesta. Ja tämä numero on kasvanut kaikkien maailmankuupien. Jokainen joukkue tekee enemmän rahaa kuin viimeinen. Mutta ennen kuin menemme siitä, mistä se 9 miljardia tulee ja mistä se menee, löydämme vähän enemmän FIFAa. Footballin maailmankuvausjärjestelmä. Se oli suunniteltu enemmän kuin 120 vuotta sitten non-profit-järjestelmällä. Mutta mitä se todella tarkoittaa? Matt Lyons on täällä ja hän voi kertoa.

the one FIFA sets.

So it's fair to say that most people who wanted a ticket didn't get one. And those who did found a price tag they probably weren't expecting. A category one seat at the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar cost $1,600. The same category ticket for the final this year, $11,000. A 585% increase in four years.

For the first time in World Cup history, FIFA used dynamic pricing. Not a fixed price printed months in advance, but a price that moves up mostly based on demand on the team's playing on how close you are to the match.

Tarkoita sitä kuin yliopistotikettä. Jos ostat alkaen, voit palata vähemmän, odotat ja palaat, mitä algoritmi päättää sinun arvoasi. Mark Di Donato opettaa koulutusjärjestelmää Florida State Universityin ja hän on seurannut FIFA-pricingin strategiaa tämän koulutuksen hyvin lähellä.

Tällä hetkellä se on paljon parempi, että he järjestävät tikkueita yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä.

We put all this to FIFA. A spokesperson told us its focus is fair access. That group stage ticket started at $60 for every match, including the final. Around 1,000 tickets at that price were set aside for team supporters at each game. That's about 104,000 tickets across the tournament. FIFA says its pricing covers a broad range, that it moves with demand, and that variable pricing is standard across major sport and entertainment.

Matt Lines is back with us. He's a producer and a massive football fan. And he's keeping score, working out how much is being earned as we go along. So Matt, what's the score for face value tickets? So I'll update the scoreboard. FIFA budgeted 3.1 billion dollars from ticketing and hospitality for this tournament. Three times what Qatar brought in. Every dollar of that primary sale flows directly to FIFA. But that ticket hasn't stopped earning yet.

Once FIFA sells a ticket, a second economy kicks in. Another first for this World Cup. FIFA runs its own official resale platform. In the US and Canada, sellers can list at any price they choose. No ceiling, no cap. And FIFA takes a cut. 15% from the seller, 15% from the buyer. A combined 30% on every single resale transaction. At the last World Cup in Qatar in 2022...

FIFA kappasi resale-pricet face value and charged a maximum of 5%. FIFA says its resale platform gives fans a safe and transparent place to sell on, and that its fees are in line with industry standards across North America's sport and entertainment. It warns that tickets bought from other secondary ticket sites might not be valid. Jim McCarthy has spent more than 20 years in the live events business in the United States.

And the 30% combined cut? That's a nice piece of the action if you're FIFA. You can understand their motivation to want to make sure that people trade inside the official marketplace. So what does that look like in practice? On a $10,990 final ticket relisted on FIFA's own platform at say $20,000, FIFA collects $6,000 from a single transaction on a ticket it had already sold once.

Kuusi tikkia jälkeen jäljellä 19. joulun loppuun New Jerseyin. Se näyttää FIFA's own marketplace at approximately 2.3 million dollars each. That's the secondary market at its most extreme. The question for Jim is whether FIFA's pricing strategy created the conditions for it.

You're listening to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Sam Fenwick and today we're following the money behind FIFA's billions. But here's the thing about ticket prices. They're not FIFA's main business. Broadcast rights, sponsorship. These are where the serious money is.

And behind all this is a revenue machine on a scale that most people don't expect. Amir Samoji is the founder of Sports Value, a sports marketing consultancy in Brazil. His firm has produced the most detailed independent analysis of FIFA's revenues for this tournament. The last World Cup they made 7 billion in revenues in broadcast rights, sponsorship, gate receipts. So they are trying to reach 11 billion dollars.

More matches mean more broadcast rights deals, and the broadcast deals are enormous. FIFA's official budget puts broadcasting rights for the 2026 World Cup at $3.92 billion. What about FIFA's not-for-profit status? What does that actually mean in practice when you're looking at numbers this size? It's a lot of money from a non-profit organization. It's a lot of money. So they will explain that they use this money to improve

Viifa kertoi, että se on not-for-profit. Viifa kertoi, että se on not-for-profit.