FIFA is planning to sell general sale tickets for the men’s World Cup in 2026 under a dynamic pricing model, a system whereby prices fluctuate based on demand.
So far, the only ticket packages available to purchase for the World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, have been limited to hospitality offerings which feature multiple games packaged together. Prices for those packages start at $3,500 per person, soaring to $73,200.
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In response to this story, FIFA said that ticket sales for the World Cup are expected to begin in the third quarter of 2025 via their official website and that further details will be released in due course.
However, The Athletic has been told by individuals familiar with FIFA’s planning, who wished to remain anonymous to protect relationships, that the organisation is currently intending to implement a dynamic pricing model. It is expected that exceptions will be made for fixed pricing in the small per game allocation which will be provided to football associations whose teams are competing in the tournament, but general sale tickets will be subject to dynamic pricing.
In the ‘United’ bid for the U.S., Canada and Mexico to co-host the World Cup, the countries submitted “a ticketing revenue estimate of $1.8 billion”, which it claimed was “conservative.” FIFA announced in March that it has a revenue target of $13billion for the four-year cycle culminating in the World Cup in 2026, up from $7.6billion between 2019 and the men’s World Cup in Qatar in 2022. This underlines what FIFA see as the scale of their money-spinning opportunity in the North American market.
The vast bulk of revenue from ticket sales will go to FIFA, rather than the host city committees who are involved in the planning of the tournament.
FIFA has already sold general sale tickets via dynamic pricing for this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup, which takes place in the U.S.,which means that ticket prices have been and will continue to be adjusted on the basis of demand and availability.
So far, this has been to the advantage of the consumer because the Club World Cup is a newly expanded tournament and ticket sales have struggled for some fixtures, particularly in the group stages, meaning that lower prices have developed. The Athletic revealed on Saturday that tickets were available for $30 or less for group stage matches involving Manchester City, Inter Milan, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. However, the flip-side can be seen in games involving Real Madrid, where availability is less and demand is higher, meaning that the lowest price for their group games, as of Friday, was $100 per ticket.
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Dynamic pricing was also used during last year’s Copa America, which also took place on U.S. soil.
The idea of dynamic pricing is much more familiar in U.S. sports and sectors such as travel, hotels, ride-hailing apps and music concerts, but it is rarely utilised in European football.
When the Spanish team Valencia introduced dynamic pricing at the start of the 2024-25 season, the Football Supporters Association warned that it would be met with “enormous opposition” should it ever be trialled by English football clubs. Football Supporters Europe described it as “nothing but blatant greed.”
Supporters may be concerned that dynamic pricing may price them out of the competition. Tourists in particular will not only factor in ticket prices but also accommodation, flights and travel within North America. Parking fees at stadiums during Copa America also went into three figures at some venues.
Oxford University Press included “dynamic pricing” on its six-phrase shortlist for its word of the year for 2024 after a series of controversies thrust the practice into the public consciousness. Dynamic pricing was in place when the Oasis reunion tour tickets went on sale in the United Kingdom and Ireland last year and the resulting sky-high prices provoked a major backlash from fans and politicians, leading the band to abandon the practice for their ticket sales on their subsequent tours of North America.
(Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
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