With just days to go before the US men’s national team kicks off its World Cup campaign, tickets for the opening match against Paraguay remain unsold. The game is set to take place on Friday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which will be renamed Los Angeles Stadium for the tournament.
FIFA’s ticketing website shows 132 tickets left to sell, while resale platforms such as StubHub and SeatGeek have thousands of tickets available. The high prices for tickets, with the most expensive regular seats costing $2,735, are widely seen as the reason for the slow sales.
World Cup Ticket Sales
Ticketing experts agree that the prices are to blame for the unsold tickets. The cheapest tickets for the US opener are priced at $1,120, more than the cost of a ticket to the 2022 World Cup final. Even President Trump has weighed in, saying he wouldn’t pay the high prices to attend the match.
The other two remaining games for the US national team have far fewer tickets available, with prices well below those for the opening match. Meanwhile, other games across the 104-match tournament also still have many tickets left to sell, despite FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s claim that every match is “already sold out”.
Demand for high-profile tickets, such as those for Argentina and Portugal, has been far higher, with many of those games looking largely sold out. However, games featuring lesser-known teams, such as Jordan against Algeria, still have hundreds of unsold seats.
Implications and Reactions
FIFA and organizers are hoping for a last-minute surge in sales for the opening matches, but experts say the high prices and travel costs for the tournament, which is taking place across an entire continent, have shaped perceptions of the event. Ben Shields, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says the tournament’s business side has overshadowed the sport itself so far.
As the World Cup gets underway, it remains to be seen whether the US and Canada opening matches will sell out. The tournament’s success will depend on whether the excitement of the games can overcome the initial disappointment of slow ticket sales, and whether the World Cup can live up to its reputation as a premier global sporting event.
