Welcome to America: The 2026 World Cup was never going to be cheap | OneFootball

There is a recurring shock coming from parts of the international soccer audience — particularly in Europe — and domestic fans also, about the cost of attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Tickets feel expensive. Hospitality packages feel exclusionary. And the host countrlies seem largely indifferent to the complaints.

That shock misunderstands where this tournament is taking place.

”Welcome to North America, Europeans. You have no idea what we do here,” I said recently — and I stand by it. In the United States (Mexico and Canada have no say in this matter so for simplicity, let’s just refer to the United States as the host country since it’s dictating the rules of the game), ticket pricing is not an accessory to the sports business. It is the business. Everything else — sponsorships, hospitality, broadcast leverage — is built on the assumption that tickets will sell at market-driven prices even before a single person actually takes a seat in the stadium they have a ticket issued for.

The American Sports Model: Ticket Revenue First, Everything Else Follows

That reality was never going to bend for the World Cup, in fact, it’s been enhanced and put it under a microscope.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino understands this. He also understands the political and economic environment he’s operating in. With a U.S. president like Donald Trump, who openly believes in commercial leverage and spectacle, Infantino has aligned himself accordingly — because this is FIFA’s clearest path to becoming richer than ever. If you’re a history buff, you’re seeing panem et circenses happening in front of your eyes.

Look at the global economic map. Several of the top 20 cities with the highest GDPs in the world are in the United States. That fact alone should end the fantasy that this would somehow be a “budget” World Cup.

Take Miami. The same stadiums that will host World Cup matches also host the College Football National Championship. Tickets for that game regularly skyrocket — to watch 18-year-olds “smash their heads and get CTE,” as I put it — while those athletes already make millions through deals that as the name says, compensates them for our exploitation of their Name, Image and Likeness aka NIL.

Oh, you get it now. And yet people are outraged that a World Cup ticket might cost $300-500? But let’s be honest: can we think about what this value represents in terms of how do we, Americans, value professional sports?

Maybe it’s not so much overpricing as is a free market reality.

The real question FIFA will eventually have to answer isn’t whether prices are high. It’s whether internal demand will be strong enough to fill stadiums at those prices. And the honest answer is probably no — not completely, especially for games like Curacao and Ivory Coast for example, a game in Philadelphia, where you can still get in for less than 300 bucks.

That’s where the misunderstanding deepens.

Our primary market runs on hype, urgency, and artificial scarcity. The secondary market runs on correction. If history tells us anything, tickets will become available closer to kickoff at prices that reflect actual demand — not launch-phase hysteria like we’re seeing today.

So here’s the advice many don’t want to hear: stop panicking. Stop trying to buy tickets at the exact moment they are at their highest possible value. That is, bluntly, “absolutely insane and absolutely stupid.”

If you wanted total control over planning and pricing, that window closed the moment the draw was finalized. From here on out, you work with what remains. Many people like me already bought packages. I’m going to be in all 4 of Brazil’s first matches. Many like me, already committed serious money. That’s how mega-events function in the United States.

And yes — this World Cup will not be accessible to everyone. That is uncomfortable to say, but it is honest. It will exclude parts of the lower socioeconomic spectrum. That is the American sports model.

“That’s not America. That’s not what we represent,” some will certainly say — and I meant it descriptively, not defensively. Well, think again. There has never been an expectation that the U.S. would redesign its live-sports economy to accommodate the World Cup. There is absolutely no reason to believe it will start now.

The 2026 World Cup is entering a new market, so just happens to be the most mature, commercialized live-sports environment in the world. Let’s embrace it. Buck up. Save your money. Understand the system you’re stepping into. And of course, enjoy the show and try to tune out the noise.