Soaring ticket prices for the USMNT’s first World Cup match on June 12 in L.A. have “left U.S. fans irate and potentially thousands of seats empty” six weeks before the FIFA World Cup begins when the game “should have been a sold-out celebration,” according to Rachel Bachman of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. This week, FIFA’s website showed seats available for the U.S. opener “in at least a few dozen sections” of SoFi Stadium. Bachman: “The slow uptake is especially jarring considering the surge in soccer’s popularity since the last U.S.-based World Cup more than three decades ago. But despite their increased interest in the team, fans have been left disillusioned by a ticket process that they call opaque and overpriced.” FIFA “never posted a full menu of what tickets would actually cost for the tournament.” Instead, it has released batches of tickets on its website at different moments, with prices “varying by game and over time.” And the U.S. opener has “some of the most expensive tickets in the entire tournament.” FIFA said that it is “using demand-driven dynamic pricing to maximize World Cup revenue,” which FIFA officials “argue is crucial” to its nonprofit mission of supporting global soccer federations. Bachman notes “not all U.S. games are priced as high as the opener.” Tickets to the U.S.-Australia game June 19 in Seattle cost a U.S. fan “$470 apiece” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4/29).
NOT LISTED: The CP’s Tara Deschamps reported FIFA’s marketplace for resale World Cup tickets “no longer has seats listed for Toronto matches after a new price cap law came into effect.” The Ontario legislation “bans people and platforms from reselling seats to events in the province for more than face value.” FIFA said that its resale platform is being “reconfigured to comply with the legislation” that became law Friday and are “expected to be relisted once the system changes are complete.” FIFA added that listings for Toronto’s World Cup games have not “been deleted but are in limbo while it makes the changes.” FIFA’s marketplace “still has listings for World Cup games in every other host city but Toronto” (CP, 4/28).
