FIFA’s resale site has four tickets on sale for the World Cup final for “just under” $2.3M each, according to the AP. The $2,299,998.85 seats for the July 19 match at MetLife Stadium are “located behind a goal in the lower deck in block 124, row 45, seats 33-36.” FIFA does not control the asking prices on its Resale/Exchange Marketplace but “takes a 15% purchase fee from the buyer of each ticket and a 15% resale fee from the seller.” The lowest-priced tickets for the final listed Thursday on the Marketplace “were $10,923.85 for four seats four rows from the top of the upper deck behind a goal, in block 323, row 23, seats 13-16.” FIFA “put new blocks of tickets on sale” Wednesday on its direct tickets site with available tickets for the final costing $10,990. Tickets were available from FIFA at $11,130 for the July 14 semifinal in Arlington, Texas, and at $9,660 and $4,360 for the July 15 semifinal in Atlanta (AP, 4/23).
SUPPLY AND DEMAND: Longtime ticketing exec Jim McCarthy said, “The game is to find that absolutely optimal price point where the demand and the supply meet.” GOAL’s Tom Hindle noted McCarthy claims that it is “not just the desire for tickets, but the willingness to pay at a certain price point that FIFA has miscalculated.” He said, “They shouldn’t be afraid to be dynamic in their pricing on the downside. Because very few people get pricing completely correct the first time.” McCarthy: “I believe they will need to adjust to get this tournament sold the way they want it to be sold” (GOAL, 4/23).
SENDING A WARNING: The AP’s Jonathan Cooper reported Amnesty International and dozens of U.S. civil and human rights groups “issued a ‘World Cup travel advisory’” Thursday that warns tournament visitors of “‘rising authoritarianism and increasing violence’ in the United States during President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement.” The groups said that the advisory “was necessary ‘in light of the deteriorating human rights situation in the United States and in the absence of meaningful action and concrete guarantees from FIFA, host cities, or the U.S. government.’” The advisory said that visitors “may be arbitrarily denied entry to the country, detained in ‘inhumane’ conditions or subjected to invasive phone and social media searches.” It points to the “aggressive immigration surges in cities” including L.A., Chicago and Minneapolis that “led to accusations of racial profiling and the violent suppression of protests.” The message was “condemned by tourism officials,” who said that the groups were “threatening the livelihoods of service industry workers in an attempt to achieve their political goals” (AP, 4/23).
