7 ms·

Agreed, the tickets to the tournament this year were just outrageously priced. Football is historically a working class sport, but $1,000 to watch a team like D

Agreed, the tickets to the tournament this year were just outrageously priced. Football is historically a working class sport, but $1,000 to watch a team like DR Congo in the group stage is next level criminality. And it's only going to get worse from here.

curun1r 2mo ago
FIFA looked at this World Cup as an experiment. They wanted to see whether turning the monetization knob all the way to 11 would encounter significant resistance or whether fans would still watch/attend. The US, with its plethora of expensive stadiums and lax regulatory environment for price gouging compared to Europe, was the perfect testing environment. They upped the number of teams to 48 to get more games, used dynamic ticket pricing, added hydration breaks for more commercials in markets that would allow it and added a few other income streams. All this more than doubled their profits because, and this is the important part going forward, fans didn’t push back. They complained, but the still came/watched. So this will now be the new norm. Host countries will be ones where laws don’t prohibit gouging fans. They’ll come up with creative solutions to meet the rotation requirement like the upcoming host a couple games in South America farce that’s allowing them to go to Saudi Arabia after that. They’ll continue to push the boundaries of decency until they get sufficient pushback.
- jmathai 2mo ago
  I don’t disagree with what you’re saying but I said before any of this mess, and just dealing with the ticket purchasing experience, that this would be the last World Cup I attend. It’s sad though. The World Cup, while imperfect, remains an event that brings the world together. We don’t have many of those left.
- conradfr 2mo ago
  Like for live music tickets prices it's hard to collectively do the right thing and boycott. There's just too many people. But there's always a breaking point... hopefully.
  - lotsofpulp 2mo ago
    There is no right and wrong here. Watching a bunch of guys kick a ball around is a completely optional activity. The stadium can accommodate x people, and x+n people want to watch the game. Therefore, someone has to be left out. That can be decided multiple ways, but there is no philosophical reason that money being the deciding factor is wrong. We use that mechanism for almost everything else in the world. It's the worst system...except for all the others. If the problem is the size of the wealth gap between people, that's wholly unrelated to sports game tickets, and in the purview of government policy.
    - dylan604 2mo ago
      You see it in England all the time where organized fan groups do push back and protest ending up with the owners walking back the suggested ticket increases.
      - hdgvhicv 2mo ago
        It’s a union and moves power to the little people.
      - dwedge 2mo ago
        England is bizarre. Away tickets in the premiership are capped at £30 but I was routinely paying £48 in the championship and £36 in league 1 (second and third leagues)
      - lotsofpulp 2mo ago
        There is nothing wrong with that, either. It’s all just buyers and sellers negotiating prices.
- hibikir 2mo ago
  There was pushback if you look at per-team attendance situations, but there's more than enough people living in the US making a ton of money that can easily afford the crazy prices. It did lower how many people from some big football nations decide to follow their team around. Not just due to the prices, but the travel distances. Just consider the practical logistics for, say, Spain's run. 2 games in Atlanta (Cabo verde and Saudi Arabia), then go play Uruguay in Guadalajara, then Austria in SoFi/L.A, then Portugal in the Dallas metro, back to SoFi for Belgium, again to Arlington for France, and New Jersey for Argentina: That's a lot of travel and hotel changing, because there's no reasonable way to go to a game and come back in the same day. For all the problems in Qatar's world cup, a fan could watch two games a day, live,because the stadiums were that close. The 2026 bid maximized distances about as much as one could, vs, say, at least limit it all to the west coast, which would still be a lot by normal standards, bout would mean fewer huge metros where you could dip your toe in and ask for a ton of money, as there'd be very few games there. And again, we are talking a team that won, and was among the favorites to win from day 1, just not being able to fill 1/3rd of the stadium, or anything close.
- dwedge 2mo ago
  Wasn't this one of the only ever world cups where group stage games weren't sold out?
nephihaha 2mo ago
"Football is historically a working class sport" Not as much as the popular culture makes out. Association football (as opposed to folk football) was codified in English private schools such as Uppingham, and at Cambridge University. Working class people played very different forms of football at the time, including carrying the ball etc. Association football was the more genteel form of the game. It used to be the main sport at Eton College, not rugby.
- scott_w 2mo ago
  While true, it’s not a refutation at all. Look at the attendance makeup of every English club in the last 100 years, listen to the stories of the people who grew up supporting their local team, the young boys that grew up playing and became local or national heroes. That tells you where the soul of football lives.
  - nephihaha 2mo ago
    I've been hearing this "football is working class" thing all my life. Honestly, depending on where you are in the UK, you will see working class people participating in rugby league (Northern England), rugby union (South Wales, West Country, Scottish Borders), hurling, Gaelic football (both NI), shinty (the Highlands), cricket (Yorkshire and one or two other places), basketball, boxing and all the rest. Apart from rugby league, none of these games is playing the "prolier than thou" card. Several of those games are cheaper to go and watch. In fact, it's cheaper to go to the opera or ballet than the football as someone pointed out to me, even though those have a different image. Season tickets to major clubs are extortionate. (Yes, that includes the SPL.) It isn't as working class as it makes out, other than the fact anyone can play it in the park. (But the same is true of other sports.) Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football (which looked more like rugby) and has basically covered up its posh origins. The "football" our ancestors played seven hundred years ago has almost no resemblance to soccer.
    - scott_w 2mo ago
      Literally none of the things you said refute my statement > depending on where you are in the UK, I specifically referred to English clubs. The fact that other home nations prefer different sports has no bearing on English culture. The fact that multiple sports are considered working class has no bearing on the fact that football is one of those sports. > Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football Irrelevant. My frame of reference was working class people over the last century. What Mediaeval England did was never part of my argument.

curun1r 2mo ago

FIFA looked at this World Cup as an experiment. They wanted to see whether turning the monetization knob all the way to 11 would encounter significant resistance or whether fans would still watch/attend. The US, with its plethora of expensive stadiums and lax regulatory environment for price gouging compared to Europe, was the perfect testing environment. They upped the number of teams to 48 to get more games, used dynamic ticket pricing, added hydration breaks for more commercials in markets that would allow it and added a few other income streams. All this more than doubled their profits because, and this is the important part going forward, fans didn’t push back. They complained, but the still came/watched. So this will now be the new norm. Host countries will be ones where laws don’t prohibit gouging fans. They’ll come up with creative solutions to meet the rotation requirement like the upcoming host a couple games in South America farce that’s allowing them to go to Saudi Arabia after that. They’ll continue to push the boundaries of decency until they get sufficient pushback.

jmathai 2mo ago
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying but I said before any of this mess, and just dealing with the ticket purchasing experience, that this would be the last World Cup I attend. It’s sad though. The World Cup, while imperfect, remains an event that brings the world together. We don’t have many of those left.
conradfr 2mo ago
Like for live music tickets prices it's hard to collectively do the right thing and boycott. There's just too many people. But there's always a breaking point... hopefully.
- lotsofpulp 2mo ago
  There is no right and wrong here. Watching a bunch of guys kick a ball around is a completely optional activity. The stadium can accommodate x people, and x+n people want to watch the game. Therefore, someone has to be left out. That can be decided multiple ways, but there is no philosophical reason that money being the deciding factor is wrong. We use that mechanism for almost everything else in the world. It's the worst system...except for all the others. If the problem is the size of the wealth gap between people, that's wholly unrelated to sports game tickets, and in the purview of government policy.
  - dylan604 2mo ago
    You see it in England all the time where organized fan groups do push back and protest ending up with the owners walking back the suggested ticket increases.
    - hdgvhicv 2mo ago
      It’s a union and moves power to the little people.
    - dwedge 2mo ago
      England is bizarre. Away tickets in the premiership are capped at £30 but I was routinely paying £48 in the championship and £36 in league 1 (second and third leagues)
    - lotsofpulp 2mo ago
      There is nothing wrong with that, either. It’s all just buyers and sellers negotiating prices.
hibikir 2mo ago
There was pushback if you look at per-team attendance situations, but there's more than enough people living in the US making a ton of money that can easily afford the crazy prices. It did lower how many people from some big football nations decide to follow their team around. Not just due to the prices, but the travel distances. Just consider the practical logistics for, say, Spain's run. 2 games in Atlanta (Cabo verde and Saudi Arabia), then go play Uruguay in Guadalajara, then Austria in SoFi/L.A, then Portugal in the Dallas metro, back to SoFi for Belgium, again to Arlington for France, and New Jersey for Argentina: That's a lot of travel and hotel changing, because there's no reasonable way to go to a game and come back in the same day. For all the problems in Qatar's world cup, a fan could watch two games a day, live,because the stadiums were that close. The 2026 bid maximized distances about as much as one could, vs, say, at least limit it all to the west coast, which would still be a lot by normal standards, bout would mean fewer huge metros where you could dip your toe in and ask for a ton of money, as there'd be very few games there. And again, we are talking a team that won, and was among the favorites to win from day 1, just not being able to fill 1/3rd of the stadium, or anything close.
dwedge 2mo ago
Wasn't this one of the only ever world cups where group stage games weren't sold out?

nephihaha 2mo ago

"Football is historically a working class sport" Not as much as the popular culture makes out. Association football (as opposed to folk football) was codified in English private schools such as Uppingham, and at Cambridge University. Working class people played very different forms of football at the time, including carrying the ball etc. Association football was the more genteel form of the game. It used to be the main sport at Eton College, not rugby.

scott_w 2mo ago
While true, it’s not a refutation at all. Look at the attendance makeup of every English club in the last 100 years, listen to the stories of the people who grew up supporting their local team, the young boys that grew up playing and became local or national heroes. That tells you where the soul of football lives.
- nephihaha 2mo ago
  I've been hearing this "football is working class" thing all my life. Honestly, depending on where you are in the UK, you will see working class people participating in rugby league (Northern England), rugby union (South Wales, West Country, Scottish Borders), hurling, Gaelic football (both NI), shinty (the Highlands), cricket (Yorkshire and one or two other places), basketball, boxing and all the rest. Apart from rugby league, none of these games is playing the "prolier than thou" card. Several of those games are cheaper to go and watch. In fact, it's cheaper to go to the opera or ballet than the football as someone pointed out to me, even though those have a different image. Season tickets to major clubs are extortionate. (Yes, that includes the SPL.) It isn't as working class as it makes out, other than the fact anyone can play it in the park. (But the same is true of other sports.) Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football (which looked more like rugby) and has basically covered up its posh origins. The "football" our ancestors played seven hundred years ago has almost no resemblance to soccer.
  - scott_w 2mo ago
    Literally none of the things you said refute my statement > depending on where you are in the UK, I specifically referred to English clubs. The fact that other home nations prefer different sports has no bearing on English culture. The fact that multiple sports are considered working class has no bearing on the fact that football is one of those sports. > Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football Irrelevant. My frame of reference was working class people over the last century. What Mediaeval England did was never part of my argument.