FIFA’s U.S. bonanza begins with ‘alarming’ Club World Cup ticket prices, ‘adaptive pricing’

It’s $379 for an upper-deck ticket to Al Ahly vs. Inter Miami. It’s $172 for a seat at the very top of Lumen Field for a group-stage match between Botafogo and the Seattle Sounders. It might be $2,230 for a “lower tier” ticket to the final, according to a since-removed chart on Bayern Munich’s website. And some of those prices could change, because FIFA has partnered with Ticketmaster and will use a non-automated version of dynamic pricing for the 2025 men’s Club World Cup.

Tickets for the tournament, which will be played in the United States, went on sale to the general public Thursday. And they offered a window into how FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, will attempt to extract unprecedented profit from the U.S. market over the next two summers — first from the inaugural Club World Cup, then from the 2026 men’s World Cup.

The prices, which vary from match to match, ranged from $58 in the upper corner of the Rose Bowl to well over $100 for most upper-deck seats in the first batch of tickets released Thursday. They are over $200 for most lower- and mid-level seats in corners or beyond an endline.

In some cases, they are similar 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 novel, unproven tournament that has attracted significantly less interest from broadcasters, sponsors and fans.

In Qatar, tickets to a World Cup semifinal ranged from $137 to $956. In the U.S. three summers later, conditional tickets to a Club World Cup semifinal 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 amended to remove knockout-round pricing.

Tickets to those knockout games will go on sale to the public Jan. 16, FIFA said. Thursday’s opening of a four-week sales window was solely for group-stage matches — and does not yet include lower-level sideline seats, which figure to be the most expensive.

But already, the prices have been “alarming,” Bailey Brown, president of the Independent Supporters Council, a group representing soccer fans across the U.S. and Canada, told Yahoo Sports in an email.

“We are genuinely concerned about the overall increase in the pricing of tickets for large tournaments in North America,” she wrote, and [we] think that many of the most passionate fans will be priced out of enjoying the sport because of it. We are worried about ticket pricing for the upcoming World Cup in 2026 if the Club World Cup is a sign of what is to come.”

Club World Cup tickets and ‘adaptive pricing’

The prices, to some extent, are byproducts of a rushed planning process riddled with uncertainty. To get this Club World Cup off the ground, FIFA had to secure a dozen venues, and therefore had to negotiate with stadium owners across the U.S. Those negotiations, which finally yielded an announcement in late September, required compromises between two profit-seeking entities, the stadium owners and FIFA.

So, rather than sell tickets on its own website, FIFA agreed to sell through Ticketmaster, which has pre-existing partnerships with most of the 12 stadiums; and presumably agreed to share some ticket revenue.

They also agreed to a scheme similar to Ticketmaster’s notorious “dynamic pricing,” whereby prices fluctuate based on demand, so that sellers and event organizers can maximize revenue. A FIFA spokesman clarified that the Club World Cup’s “adaptive pricing” is not automated, but confirmed that organizers could adjust prices over time, between now and June, when the tournament starts. An “important event info” blurb on all of Ticketmaster’s Club World Cup match portals states: “Please note that ticket prices may change from day to day due to fluctuating market conditions.”

Typically, for major soccer tournaments like the World Cup or European Championships, organizers like FIFA and UEFA set fixed prices, and sell tickets via their own online portals. Ahead of Qatar 2022, FIFA divided tickets into four categories, and established a price that would apply to each category across all matches in a given round. A Category 3 ticket to any group-stage match, for example, cost $69; a Category 1 ticket cost $220 in the group stage, and $275 in the Round of 16, and more for a quarterfinal or semi.

At Euro 2024, a similar system priced group-stage tickets at $32, $64, $160 and $215 up to Category 1, and $430 for “Prime Seats.” Those numbers rose for knockout matches, but never changed once UEFA announced them and went live with tickets on its website.

Club World Cup tickets, on the other hand, are being handled more like 2024 Copa América tickets were, and like many American sports tickets are. Prices have been set based on anticipated demand for a given match — and therefore vary by team, time, location, stadium and other factors.

For Inter Miami’s opener at Hard Rock Stadium, an upper-level corner ticket is $223; a 200-level endline ticket is $558 (including fees but before tax).

For Miami’s second match, against Porto in Atlanta, an upper-level sideline ticket is $134.

For another Group A match between Palmeiras and Al Ahly, at noon on a Thursday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, an upper-level sideline ticket is a hair over $100.

These first batches of tickets to all Group A and Group B matches went on sale at 10 a.m. ET Thursday. Similar batches for the rest of the groups were scheduled to go on sale at 1 p.m. (Group G and H), 3 p.m. (C and D) and 5 p.m. ET (E and F).

Team-specific access to Club World Cup tickets

Separately, “FIFA has also secured a quota of tickets for the fans of the clubs playing in each match,” the organization said in a news release. Those tickets will be sold via “access codes” provided by each of the 32 clubs, and won’t be subject to “adaptive pricing”; they’ll instead be lumped into “dedicated price categories.”

Some clubs, such as Manchester City, have released information on their access processes this week; and some, such as Bayern and Borussia Dortmund, have revealed the set prices. Bayern said that, for its opening match vs. Auckland City in Cincinnati, “upper tier” tickets would be $45 and “lower tier” tickets $107. For its second match, against Argentine giant Boca Juniors in Miami, those prices rise to $76 and $161. (They are likely for endline seats behind a goal.)

The club-specific sales will also include “conditional tickets all the way up to the final,” FIFA said, “with those tickets being confirmed once [a fan’s chosen] club qualifies for the match in question.”

Bayern’s post suggested prices will increase sharply as the knockout rounds progress, with the cheaper category for the Club World Cup final priced at $892.

Next up: 2026 World Cup tickets

The prices, to some fans, confirmed or exacerbated fears that 2026 World Cup tickets will be exceedingly expensive.

Historically, World Cup tickets have been sold exclusively by FIFA, rather than through a third-party broker, and haven’t been subject to dynamic pricing. But still, fans and insiders expect 2026 to be the most expensive World Cup ever to attend.

While bidding for the right to host the tournament, North American soccer officials proposed prices that averaged out to $305 per group-stage ticket.

The North American bid, based on its projections, submitted an overall ticket revenue estimate of $1.8 billion. More recently, FIFA budgeted more than $3 billion in ticketing and hospitality revenue throughout the 2023-26 World Cup cycle — a steep increase from less than $1 billion over the previous four-year cycle. Well over $2 billion of that record revenue, and perhaps over $3 million, will come from the 2026 men’s World Cup. And many consider all those estimates conservative — especially with the tournament’s new format delivering 104 games.

Pricing decisions are now in the hands of FIFA, which has guarded its plans. Tickets aren’t expected to go on sale until the second half of 2025. But clues will emerge when FIFA goes to market with hospitality packages over the next few months.

FIFA’s U.S. bonanza

The 2026 World Cup — which will be co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, but with 80 of 104 games stateside — is expected to yield over $10 billion in total revenue, compared to around $4 billion in FIFA expenses. 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 with a $1 billion global broadcast deal signed, FIFA will reportedly fall short of its initial revenue expectations.

In a document released earlier this month, though, 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 entirely covered by the tournament revenues.” And beyond those expenses, the document says, “for the first time, a solidarity model will redistribute net revenues to club football all over the world. This model will be calibrated to the final commercial success of the tournament.”

That success will largely depend on commercial deals and, of course, on ticket sales.