It costs $379 for an upper deck ticket to watch Al Ahly vs. Inter Miami on display. It costs $172 for a seat at the very top of Lumen Field for a group game between Botafogo and the Seattle Sounders. According to a since-deleted chart on Bayern Munich’s website, a “lower level” ticket for the final costs $2,230. And some of those prices may change, as FIFA has partnered with Ticketmaster and will use a non-automated version of dynamic pricing for the 2025 Men’s World Cup.
Tickets for the tournament, which will be played in the United States, went on sale to the general public on Thursday. And they offered insight into how FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, will try to extract unprecedented profits from the U.S. market over the next two summers — first from the first Club World Cup, then from the 2026 Men’s World Cup.
Prices, which vary from game to game, ranged from $58 in the upper corner of the Rose Bowl to more than $100 for most upper deck seats in the first batch of tickets released Thursday. They cost more than $200 for most lower and mid-level seats in corners or beyond an end line.
In some cases they are comparable to what FIFA charged for tickets to its crown jewel, the Men’s World Cup, in Qatar in 2022 – even though the Club World Cup is a new, unproven tournament that has attracted significantly less interest from broadcasters and sponsors. and fans.
In Qatar, World Cup semi-final tickets ranged from $137 to $956. In the US three summers later conditional tickets for a Club The World Cup semi-final will cost registered supporters of a participating team $526 in the “upper tier” of MetLife Stadium, and $995 in the “lower tier”, according to the post on Bayern’s website – which has now been updated to include the knock-out remove out-round prizes .
Tickets for these knockout matches will go on sale to the public on January 16, FIFA said. Thursday’s opening of a four-week sell-out period was for group stage matches only – and does not yet include lower-tier seats, which are proving to be the most expensive.
Club World Cup tickets and ‘adaptive prices’
To some extent, prices are byproducts of a hasty planning process full of uncertainty. To get this Club World Cup off the ground, FIFA had to secure a dozen locations and therefore negotiate with stadium owners across the US. Those negotiations, which eventually led to an announcement in late September, required compromises between two profit-seeking entities. the stadium owners and FIFA.
So instead of selling tickets on its own website, FIFA agreed to sell through Ticketmaster, which has pre-existing partnerships with most of the twelve stadiums; and presumably agreed to share some of the ticket revenue.
They also agreed to an arrangement similar to Ticketmaster’s infamous ‘dynamic pricing’, where prices fluctuate based on demand so that sellers and event organizers can maximize their revenue. A FIFA spokesperson clarified that the Club World Cup’s “adaptive prizes” are not automated, but confirmed that organizers can adjust prizes over time, between now and June, when the tournament starts. A blurb about key events on all Ticketmaster match portals for Club World Cup states: “Please note that ticket prices may change from day to day due to fluctuating market conditions.”
For major football tournaments such as the World Cup or the European Championships, organizers such as FIFA and UEFA usually set fixed prices and sell tickets through their own online portals. Ahead of Qatar 2022, FIFA divided the tickets into four categories and set a price that would apply to each category for all matches in a given round. For example, a Category 3 ticket for a group stage match costs $69; a Category 1 ticket costs $220 in the group stage, and $275 in the Round of 16, and more for a quarter-final or semi-final.
At Euro 2024, a similar system cost group stage tickets $32, $64, $160 and $215 up to Category 1, and $430 for ‘Prime Seats’. Those figures rose for knockout matches but never changed when UEFA announced them and went live with tickets on its website.
Club World Cup tickets, on the other hand, are treated more like tickets for the 2024 Copa América were, and like many American sports tickets are. Prices are set based on expected demand for a particular match and therefore vary by team, time, location, stadium and other factors.
For Inter Miami’s opener at Hard Rock Stadium, a corner ticket on the top floor costs $223; a 200-level end-line ticket costs $558 (both inclusive of fees but before tax).
For the second match, against Porto in Atlanta, a side ticket at the top level costs $134.
For another Group A match between Palmeiras and Al Ahly, at noon on Thursday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, a side ticket at the top level will cost a hair over $100.
These first batches of tickets for all Group A and Group B matches went on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. Similar batches for the rest of the groups would go on sale at 1:00 PM (Groups G and H), 3:00 PM (C and D) and 5:00 PM (E and F).
Team-specific access to Club World Cup tickets
In addition, FIFA “has also secured a quota of tickets for the fans of the clubs playing in each match,” the organization said in a press release. These tickets are sold via “access codes” provided by each of the 32 clubs, and are not subject to “adaptive pricing”; they are instead placed in ‘specific price categories’.
Some clubs, such as Manchester City, have released information about their entry procedures this week; and some, such as Bayern and Borussia Dortmund, have announced the fixed prices. Bayern said that for the opening match against Auckland City in Cincinnati, ‘higher tier’ tickets would cost $45 and ‘lower tier’ tickets would cost $107. For the second match, against Argentine giants Boca Juniors in Miami, those prices will rise to $76 and $161. They are probably for endline seating behind a goal.
The club-specific sale also includes “conditional tickets until the final,” FIFA said, “with those tickets confirmed once.” [a fan’s chosen] club qualifies for the competition in question.”
Bayern’s proposed prices will rise sharply as the knockout rounds progress.
Next: 2026 World Cup tickets
The prices, according to some fans, confirmed or exacerbated fears that tickets for the 2026 World Cup will be extremely expensive.
Historically, World Cup tickets were sold solely by FIFA, rather than through a third-party broker, and were not subject to dynamic pricing. But fans and insiders still expect that 2026 will be the most expensive World Cup ever.
While bidding for the right to host the tournament, North American soccer officials proposed prices that averaged $305 per group stage ticket.
The North American bid generated a total ticket revenue estimate of $1.8 billion, based on the forecasts. More recently, FIFA has budgeted more than $3 billion in ticket sales and hospitality revenue over the 2023-2026 World Cup cycle – a steep increase from less than $1 billion over the previous quad. More than $2 billion of that record revenue, and perhaps more than $3 million, will come from the Men’s World Cup in 2026. And many consider all of these estimates to be conservative, especially since the tournament’s new format features 104 matches.
The pricing decisions are now in the hands of FIFA, which monitors its plans. Tickets are not expected to go on sale until the second half of 2025. But clues will emerge when FIFA launches hospitality packages in the coming months.
FIFA’s American bonanza
The 2026 World Cup – which will be co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico, but with 80 of the 104 matches in the United States – is expected to generate more than $10 billion in total revenue, compared to around $4 billion for FIFA -expenditure. It will be by far the most lucrative sports tournament ever.
The 2025 Club World Cup, on the other hand, is more financially murky. Even if a global broadcast deal worth $1 billion is signed, FIFA will reportedly fall short of initial revenue expectations.
However, in a document released earlier this month, FIFA promised that its reserves, which total $4 billion, “will remain untouched.” All operating costs, appearance fees and prize money paid to clubs “will be fully covered by tournament revenues.” And beyond these expenses, the document says, “a solidarity model will redistribute net club football revenues around the world for the first time. This model will be tailored to the ultimate commercial success of the tournament.”
That success will largely depend on commercial deals and of course ticket sales.
