Ashish Malhotra, a journalist, longtime soccer fan and co-host of the new Soccernomics podcast, had never been to a FIFA World Cup game before and was looking forward to finally attending one next month at MetLife stadium in New Jersey, just half an hour from his upper Manhattan home.
After weeks of trying to secure a ticket, however, he abandoned all hope.
“I've stopped trying,” Malhotra said. “The process has just been extremely frustrating for me and I think everyone I know who’s wanted to go to this World Cup.”
Like Malhotra, many New Yorkers who are avid fans of the beautiful game will have to either sit out local matches or fork over thousands of dollars, according to experts and companies that analyze World Cup ticket pricing. Tickets for the eight New York-New Jersey games are currently selling for an average $2,790, according to SeatPick.com. That's 118% higher than the 16-city average of $1,279, according to the company’s general manager, Shawn Stein. The average price of tickets to the July 19 World Cup final is $12,500, Stein said.
High prices are partly the result of widespread use of dynamic pricing, according to scholars who closely follow sports and consumer behavior. Dynamic pricing means ticket prices are constantly fluctuating based on consumer demand and other factors. The pricing approach has prompted formal complaints from fans in Europe.
The salient issue is not how many people want to attend a given game but how many people “with very high willingness to pay want the scarce best tickets,” said Pnina Feldman, the Bigelow Research Associate Professorship in Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
“New York is unusually popular because it combines a huge local wealthy market, corporate demand, tourism demand, and MetLife hosting the final,” Feldman said. “Even if some international visitors stay away, there may still be enough high-value buyers to support very high prices for the most attractive games.”
Where does one actually buy World Cup tickets?
Tickets are available through the FIFA resale site as well as conventional sites, including StubHub, Seat Geek and Ticketmaster.
A pair of nosebleed tickets for the June 13 Brazil vs. Morocco game currently sells for just under $2,900 on Seat Geek, and $2,500 on StubHub. In both cases, fees alone on each ticket exceeded $200.
Early on, fans could apply for tickets through the FIFA World Cup lottery, but with slim odds, according to Malhotra.
He said he tried to get a ticket through the lottery earlier this year, but knew only one person out of “a few dozen” friends and acquaintances who succeeded in that manner, landing a $140 ticket not in New York, but in Toronto.
Are people widely getting scammed?
That does not appear to be the case so far.
The New York State Division of Consumer Protection has not received any complaints regarding World Cup scams, according to spokesperson Mercedes Padilla.
The Division cautioned buyers to beware of phishing attempts. It also said fans should avoid online marketplaces like Craigslist, eBay and Facebook Marketplace, and only buy tickets from official sources.
Similarly, the office of the New Jersey attorney general has circulated its Beware of Ticket Sale Scams consumer brief, which provides information on New Jersey’s ticket sale laws and guidance for making purchases safely.
“We are committed to protecting consumers from fraud and scams when purchasing event tickets,” said Michael Symons, a spokesperson for the attorney general.
Which way are prices trending?
Downward. That’s the good news for fans who still have hopes of purchasing tickets.
Tickets for the France vs. Senegal game on June 16 have dropped by 28% in the last 30 days, according to TicketData.com. Over the same period, ticket prices for the Ecuador vs. Germany match on June 25 fell by 26%, and the Norway vs. Senegal match on June 22 by 16%.
Malhotra said that while he’d given up on trying to get tickets to MetLife games, he might renew his search in hopes of scoring tickets to a game in Philadelphia or Toronto. But he doesn’t expect the price to come close to what it was during the 2022 World Cup games, in Qatar. That year, he said, members of the public paid as little as $70 a ticket.
Is the U.S. situation unusual?
Highly, said Jan Boehmer, a professor of sport management at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology. He called the prices of 2026 World Cup tickets “record-setting,” in part because this was the first time FIFA had adopted dynamic pricing, a fundamental shift from earlier tournaments.
“Ticket prices for World Cup games have been going up for years, but the current situation here in the U.S. is certainly a new extreme,” Boehmer said.
In addition to dynamic pricing, Boehmer said high prices were driven by hefty fees in the resale market and the reduction of standard seating in favor of more premium seating.
“What we are seeing is not just standard inflation, but a result of FIFA's attempt to integrate into the hyper-monetized American entertainment ecosystem,” he said. “This has caused massive frustrations among fans and international fan organizations - and even resulted in initial calls for boycotts.”
