Q&A: Why FIFA can get away with such high ticket prices

Victor Matheson has been to a lot of big international sports tournaments. So, he's more familiar than most with how expensive tickets have gotten.

It's also part of his job.

Matheson, a professor of sports economics at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, said it cost him around $50 to $60 a ticket to attend the World Cup as a "poor grad student" back when the United States was last host in 1994.

"Those at the time were, I thought, horrifically expensive," he said.

Now, even after accounting for inflation, the average cheapest ticket for a group stage game at this year's World Cup has increased about fivefold.

Why?

Matheson said it starts with the simple economics of supply and demand. While there are more people — and specifically more rich people — in the world, how many people you can fit within viewing distance of a patch of turf hasn't changed much for centuries. (The ancient Roman Colosseum is believed to have had roughly about the same seating capacity as, say, Gillette Stadium does today.) 

In the last 100 years, technological advances have also made it much easier for people to travel to global sporting events. And in the last two decades, the internet has made it easier for ticket sellers to ruthlessly extract every last cent from buyers through dynamic pricing that quickly responds to changes in demand.

"Ticket scalping in 1994 was much more difficult because you had to do it in person, with actual people on the street, and you had to find them," Matheson said.

Add in that soccer is the world's most popular sport with the fact that there's been a post-COVID boom in live events, and the World Cup becomes "the perfect storm for wildly expensive price," according to Matheson.

And yet, he said those aren't the only factors that explain why FIFA can continue to hike ticket prices. I spoke to Matheson about what makes the World Cup particularly unique (i.e. expensive) and his advice for finding the cheapest possible tickets.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Nik DeCosta-Klipa: Are these World Cup ticket prices just the logical result of the structural factors you mentioned when it comes to live events — or is something different happening?

Victor Matheson: "The real issue is FIFA can afford to make all of its customers wildly angry for a variety of reasons. They have a very unique product. It is this world event that is the world game. Basketball or hockey or the World Baseball Classic can't do this at all, because you're talking about a much, much smaller segment of the world willing to do this.

"But the other thing is that they can afford to piss off fans in a way that the NFL or the NBA can't — because the NFL and the NBA are counting on repeat customers.

"There are the same number of people that are going to go to the World Cup as are going to go to a Patriots game. These are sold-out events in both circumstances. But FIFA is charging $175 for parking spaces, while Gillette charges a fraction of that for Patriots games, because [Gillette] wants those customers to come back next time.

"But no one's coming back. There's not going to be another World Cup game at Gillette Stadium for a minimum of 30 years. By the time that happens, you figure the fans will have forgotten about it, or we'll all be dead.

"In 2030, it's going to be a whole set of new customers; it's going to be Spanish and Portuguese customers that they're going to make angry."

NDK: Who’s ultimately to blame?

VM: "The good rule of thumb is always blame FIFA. That being said, it's hard for an economist to argue that a person who can sell something for $400 shouldn't sell it for $400, and should instead put it on sale for $100. I really can't get too upset about the pricing when they are an organization that is trying to make money.

"I think they should be worried about whether pricing out the regular fan is something that is good for the long-term interest of their event. I am worried that tickets are so expensive this year that when I go to Morocco-Scotland, that there's going to be only a tiny contingent of Moroccans and a small contingent of the Tartan Army. And that's what makes this event great. Historically, the World Cup has attracted these great, very multi-ethnic crowds.

"But I'm worried that the only folks that will be at the games will be rich influencers who spend the whole time on their phones and taking selfies — not banging the drums and ringing the bells and blowing on the vuvuzelas."

NDK: Is there a better way? What would have to change if you wanted to ensure more affordable tickets were available?

VM: "The problem is it can’t happen. At the prices that I think most of us would think are fair and that would be affordable for regular people, say $50 or $100, the demand would be so high that you would have 10 times as many people wanting to go to games as there's tickets available.

"So, how are you going to allocate those tickets? You could just do it randomly and by lottery. But guess what? What's going to happen there is the Russian bot farms are going to get as many entries into that lottery as possible, and then we're going to buy tickets for $50 and immediately turn around and put them on sale for $400.

"The illustrative story is Bruce Springsteen, who was kind of the last guy who held out. He wanted $50 and $60 tickets available for his real fans, because that's who he wants at his concert. But he was finding out all his fans were paying $300 anyway. So finally, he just relented and said, ‘Well, if someone's gonna make $200 on selling a ticket, it might as well be me, and not some ticket reseller using AI and destroying our electricity grid. It should be the actual artist.’ "

NDK: What’s your advice to people trying to get tickets at this point?

VM: "If you have your heart set on watching Erling Haaland play Kylian Mbappe in Boston with France versus Norway, be prepared to pay a tremendous amount.

"But if you just want to go to a game in the World Cup — and again, historically, every game has been great because you've had these vibrant atmospheres — look for those games that the soccer snobs won't want to go to.

"That's a little bit tough in Boston. It's going to be weird I'm going to say this, but Boston got a little bit unlucky in that it got really good games up and down the line. But pass on France-Norway. Instead, go to Haiti-Scotland. That's a game that has a better chance of having affordable tickets."

NDK: Is it better to keep waiting until the last minute to buy tickets?

VM: "I suspected that had I just held off that I would be able to get cheaper tickets than I actually ended up paying.

"The problem is all the other stuff that goes along with this is expensive. If you're from outside the Boston region, hotels remain a challenge. And of course, parking or the train remains wildly expensive. So, even if I were to get a last-minute ticket for a couple hundred bucks to Norway-Iraq, I'm still out another $100 bucks at least for parking — and probably more like $200."

NDK: Anything else people can do?

VM: "You don't have to limit yourself just to Boston. You can look at some of the other markets and see if there are particularly fun, appealing matchups that might have low prices — especially if you have some sort of connections there that would allow you to visit your godparents in Houston or your long-lost college roommate in Seattle."