I guess they needed to outdo themselves:
'Murrica
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What a rip-off. That is about 100 times what I will pay for transit to BC Place Stadium
For now.
I think the real issue is that they do not have trains idle on those days. They are used for commuting. There will be a lot of rearranging trains and schedules, or else there will be a lot of stranded WC ticket holders.
Maybe they could rent a train or two from someplace else? Yeah, that’ll be cheap.
I could see myself getting dropped off by a friend about a mile from the stadium, picked up the same way afterward. Ubers and taxis will also be expensive, especially afterward. (Had that issue after a U2 Concert at the Rose Bowl.)
The closest the rails get to SoFi is 31 minutes of walking through Inglewood. No comment.
That rail can then get someone all the way downtown.
Take the K Line to Crenshaw (15 min), transfer to the E Line east to 7thStreet Metro Center (18 min), then the B line to Union Station (8 min). Plus waiting for trains. $1.75 each way. For now.
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Sounds like your problem is that your stadium is in a transit desert? Being in downtown Vancouver, BC Place has many transit options to get to it, including a subway train that stops there every three minutes or so. I have never experienced a commuting crush even with 55,000 fans in the stands.
Going to the Whitecaps game tonight. Probably will be more entertaining than the WC matches here will be. Certainly cheaper!
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Nice to see some resistance to the ridiculous prices.
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I expected that sort of reaction for many of the group stage matches, but this happening for the USMNT is a big statement.
Prices for Canada Team matches are equally ridiculous but I expect they will still almost sell out their matches.
Add on parking (divided by the number of people in the car).
Hey, they put out a price, and it is not selling out. Simple Economics found on Page 1 of any text says that the price should drop until consumers decide to buy. will they? Well, later in the text, there is discussion irrational price stickiness. Pride, a hit to one’s expertise in pricing, etc.
Could be a popular look of presently less popular teams in the USA: lower seats will be more empty then the upper seats, due to the extreme price differential and the relatively low differential of viewing quality. Lower those ticket prices, and they will sell.
Or, as I have stated for several years: have consumers offer a price that they will pay instead of only the seller being allowed to declare the price. I’m more than happy to tell someone that I’ll take a pair of lower bowl tickets for, say, $50 each, but I can’t. If I don’t get to buy them. That’s OK. I’m indifferent at that price (especially if I have to pay for parking or spend more time taking three trains to get there than the match itself).
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Also, not happy with the “buy a ticket, we’ll tell you which seat some other time” policy.
I do not wish to enter into an exchange where I give money and I do not know exactly what I’m getting.
So, I’ll wait a little longer. Find the sucker who bought too high. Maybe. The alternative is to watch several matches at home. Gonna be tough getting me out of my recliner, or from outside on my porch, as SoFi is not a short jaunt, even without traffic.
As I tallied up earlier to Union Station, it is over an hour. And I’m not near Union Station. My trip is about 40 minutes to the nearest subway (yes, there are subways!) and 26 minutes on that subway, then two more rails (33 minutes) and a 30-minute walk.
I could plan to stay overnight with my son who lives a lot closer. That would be only two surface rails: 27 minutes on one, 13 minutes on the other, then 30 minutes walking through Inglewood.
A little shorter. We’ll see what MTA LA does with its pricing.
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In that The Athletic report:
The document, dated April 10 and shared with hosts to ensure adequate planning, listed 40,934 tickets purchased for that June 12 match between the U.S. and Paraguay, compared with 50,661 for the Iran-New Zealand match three days later at the same venue, SoFi Stadium.
FIFA lists the stadium’s capacity at 69,650 for the 2026 World Cup. The document, though, does not necessarily suggest that there are tens of thousands of seats still available, because it’s unclear if the numbers include hospitality and other types of tickets that weren’t sold to the general public.
Holy shit, 30,000 seats empty? For The HOST Nation??
Infantino claims that 5 million tickets have been sold, which, if true, would break the current WC record held by… The USA in 1994, which is amazing given that there were half as many teams and half as many matches as 2026.
At 104 matches, that is about 50,000 per match. That’s pretty good. But, excluding the four lowest, and non-American, stadiums, Miami Gardens is the smallest at 65K.
If we looked at attendance vs capacity, sales are pretty shitty versus every other WC. But, money matters more these days. Twice the price, 80% capacity.
Experience (CWC) tells us that tix will be available for a song (not the parking) the day before, or earlier, to avoid empty seats:
Those secondary-market trends and the slow primary sales could compel FIFA to lower prices as the opener nears, as it did for many Club World Cup games last summer. As that unproven tournament approached, FIFA walked back its initially high prices, but not sufficiently or soon enough to avoid thousands of empty seats at most matches.
Some of the starkest Club World Cup examples — $13 tickets to a semifinal, for example, or a five-for-$20 deal on the eve of the tournament — have given fans hope that FIFA will do similarly for some 2026 World Cup games.
Still, the overriding factor seems to be pricing. FIFA has sold the Iran-New Zealand tickets for $450, $380 and $140 in its three main categories. USMNT fans were forced to pay more than six times as much, and many have told The Athletic that, because of the cost, they’ve instead focused on finding a ticket to the June 19 match against Australia in Seattle.
Um, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. Don’t buy if you don’t want to. Wait, as I am.
The US will hopefully be the final nail in the coffin of the FIFA model. They have taken it to such an extreme during this WC with their pricing that they deserve massive egg on face.
I think a few of us are deciding that our interest in attending a World Cup match isn’t enough to overcome our newfound reluctance to give FIFA any money.
“New York Stadium” and “Boston Stadium” are both day-tripping distance for me. Given what’s been announced about getting attendees to/from those stadiums…I have no appetite for attending.
It’ll be interesting to see whether FIFA learns any lessons ahead of the 2031 Women’s World Cup.
2030 WC in Spain, Portugal & Morocco
There is no chance of the current US FIFA model being replicated there.
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I’m more concerned about FIFA thinking the US market is “special”.
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