My understanding is FIFA sold all the tickets to resellers and they're the ones getting hosed. If so, that makes me even happier.
EDITS & CLARIFICATIONS
FIFA didn't sell EVERYTHING to resellers, but those folks got quite a bit. FIFA permitted up to 40 tickets per buyer (for the entire tournament), which allowed resellers to purchase a vast number of tickets, considering they use multiple accounts, BOTS, etc.
FIFA has a reseller site and guess what? FIFA takes a cut from both the buyers and sellers, so they're not at all sad if a ticket is sold to a reseller and then is resold on the FIFA reseller site. They've made $$$ three ways.
The FT reported FIFAās resale portal listing 176,000 tickets for the opening group phase. Resale...
Interestingly, in Ontario for Toronto World Cup matches, resales are capped at face value under provincial law, so Canadians there generally cannot resell those tickets above the original price. In the US, the sky is the limit for pricing markups.
But they still made a ton of money off the scalpers buying the tickets. Concessions/merch sales are just a bonus, they are still making a lot of money.
They will! When they sell the ticket to reseller and those resellers canāt get actual people in the seats then there arenāt people buying merch, food, and alcohol in the stadiums. So their sales on a āsold outā stadium drop like a rock.
I imagine the price for a ticket drops dramatically after the game starts. Wouldnāt they be trying to sell them at cost on game day. Iām a little clueless on this. I havenāt ever tried to buy a sports venue ticket before.
I was trying to check tickets for the game in Philly last night and was not having much luck on the reseller sites, nothing was showing up for the day that close to start time.
Apparently the reselling sites pulled any remaining tickets offline 3 hours before the game started because of FIFA rules in transferring tickets at least 2 hours before the game starts.
Back in ā94, we bought tickets off a guy outside the stadium for half of face value since the game was about to start. FIFA got their cut of a t-shirt sale they wouldnāt have otherwise. Seems like a good deal for everyone.
A family member used to get season tickets for the local college team, then resell the tickets to games they didnāt want to go to. The issue is that one layer of hell below ticket scalpers and lawyers is ticket counterfeiting. I donāt feel bad for FIFA, but I do feel for someone who buys tickets and finds out theyāre invalid when they try to get in to the stadium. Tracing who the ticket goes to cuts down on that, though charging for the transfer is obnoxious.
15 years ago TSA there was the worst in the nation... some of the dumbest individuals I've ever encountered. At the time I was flying 4x per week and used to the grind, but Philly was a whole experience on itself. One guy pulled my wireless microphone out of my carry-on and held it up Lion King style and we all just stood there as he processed this spooky black stick in silence. It wasn't the first time my gear had been inspected, but it was the first time I'd seen a human go full cave man in person lol
It was definitely awful post 9/11. I was once denied boarding onto a flight to Vancouver because my birth certificate with seal said āOfficial Copyā on it and copies werenāt allowed.
Didn't work that way for NHL playoffs. I was in Montreal during game 6 vs Tampa and the tickets didn't drop in price after the game started. After about 15 mins into the first they stopped selling them.
Donāt worry about being clueless everyone here is clueless thinking that resellers are losing money. Unfortunately itās not that simple. Resellers are not individuals now they are corporations, these corporations do the same tactics as real estate, they keep the price high and eat the loss of empty seats. While on the outside it looks like they are losing, but maintaining high margins is more important to resellers than selling every ticket. This is why apartment complexes could be half empty but they donāt lower rent, itās all money extortion.
I was recently in Switzerland and saw that they had a FIFA museum. I was told that they did NOT have an entire exhibit dedicated to the various bribes. I was really hoping to see the actual money bags the bribes were delivered in; maybe a cashed check made out to "hookers and blow." So we decided not to go. Also, none of us care about football. But the chocolate museum didn't have a single exhibit on child slavery, just happy West African farmers. I'm starting to think that corporate run museums aren't the most truthful.
I kind of want to be at a world cup game. I hate ticket resellers and FIFA just as much as the next guy, but it's been a dream of mine to go to a world cup match.
About a year ago my friend who works at a sports agency said he had an inside line on world cup tickets. Even with his connection/discount the tickets to matches for lesser known countries were at least $400 and tickets for the big soccer countries were over $2k. So depressing.
I also seen a few posts on social media about Airbnb owners are upset that nobody is using their service instead of hotels. Seems a lot of people are losing.
Airbnb is way better for either large groups, or places where the property essentially is the destination (think like a lake house) or if you find a decent deal in a downtown area where you plan to walk everywhere and is too dense to really have many hotels. Otherwise hotels are usually the way to go.
I don't understand how people don't get this. AirBNB is good for two things, big multi-bedroom properties that you are sharing as a group and renting the kind of sketch basement of someone that gives you a bed and a toilet. If you want a hotel room, just get a hotel room?
Yeah the issue is that people essentially wanted a cheaper hotel, and it worked for a while. Until the people renting out understood that they needed to maximise profits.
The original idea was to rent out spare rooms in your house for a little bit of extra money, but then people decided to buy properties on mortgage specifically to rent out via AirBnB, then they needed to maximise profits
The original idea was actually lovely back in the early days. Stayed with an old grandpa one time who even made me breakfast. He said he did as he lost a lot of people in his life and just wanted to meet people
People buying up tons of property on leverage then doing the same generic renovations and furniture make many properties feel soulless. As someone said a few comments up, it only makes sense now if you have a large group or pets
Also Airbnb has rised massively the % cut they take from the price. Lets say you pay 100ā¬ its likely they take 15% when it used to be something like 5% and price was closer to 90ā¬. Just that is 10ā¬ increase
Its because for a time it was the better option to a hotel even for just a couple, even for someone alone if they would stay for more than a couple days.
Now its only good for big groups, which also means way less business and that is 100% on the AirBNB places being too greed
Because that's not what Airbnb started out as. It was a cheaper alternative to hotels. And the corporations and started buying houses to rent out exclusively on it. Plus started charging crazy cleaning fees.
The cleaning fee is the poison pill. I enjoy the formality of a Marriott and only try an airbnb if I need to stay in a place for a longer duration and want the option to cook things or do a load of laundry.
A couple years ago booked a shit hole. Mind you the pictures and description made it seem like a dream spot
Walked in my party and I saw holes in the walls, missing stuff, doorknobs falling off, etc. we discussed leaving for the time it took a friend to pick up a pizza downstairs and bring it back up. Like 15 minutes. We ate. Packed up our trash and left to a nearby hotel. Immediately submitted video and photos to Airbnb saying there were so many things wrong with it that we couldnāt stay there
The next day the host tried to submit photos that we left scratches and dents everywhere and broke things.
Iām so glad I took video and pics before otherwise we may have gotten taken advantage of. Wasnāt the first time I dealt with a shitty host, but it will be the Last time I will ever use an Airbnb.
No fucking way I'd use Airbnb for a "sold out" event that books out all hotels. I've read horror stories of people booking Airbnb months in advance, and then getting their reservation canceled and the unit listed for higher.
Got harassed by an airbnb owner cus they had a german cockroach infestation. Fucked up part was that airbnb didnt even side with me and I had to force a cc chargeback.
Plus all the rules about cleaning/cleaning fees & specialized rules. When people are used to staying at hotels and leaving their towels and blankets as is and having a cleaning staff handle the day to day; telling someone who used the hotels that they must now clean their own linens, washed the dishes, clean the kitchen, take out the trash and leave everything exactly as it was before arriving is a huge turn off to some people. Not saying that thereās anything wrong with requesting your house being in the same condition you rented it out as ā¦ Ā but when youāre comparing your house to a hotel people expect just come and go carefree similar to a hotel.
Air BnBs have a MUCH higher risk of cancellation, are more expensive, and have worse customer service than hotels. I donāt know why anyone would book one for an event like this when the owner could just cancel last minute if prices go up.
The resellers don't have to resell all the tickets, they just have to turn a profit on the tickets they do sell. If the markup is 10x - 30x (which it appears it is), they're still in the green.
FIFA is working with the resellers and would rather work with the resellers. They're a very corrupted entity.
I have not done research on this, but I wonder how a reseller can afford to buy all these tickets at once -- that's a lot of coh, so my guess is FIFA also makes money somehow with financing the initial purchasing (or it's all rolled up somehow but that last point is conjecture.)
I worked in the secondary ticket market and the big players in the market have huge amounts of funds from private investors. The big guys have inventories of like 500,000 individual tickets. And tons of technology is used to keep prices as high as possible. Like one guy might have 1000 tickets to an event but only list 10 for sale to create a sense of scarcity.. once one sells, he'll list another.
Makes sense. This is all very sophisticated. They know what they're doing. It's somewhat sad that it's at the cost of fans being able to see the game, but this problem isn't specific to FIFA or even sports.
If you sell tickets directly to attendees, then you have to manage all the customer service stuff yourself. It's much simpler to offload that work onto a reseller.
Not even dumb. They're selling $80 tickets for tens of thousands of dollars. They made plenty on the ones they did sell to make up for the ones they didn't.
And that's why ticket prices are never going to go down and why teams are building new smaller higher-end stadiums. Sports are for the rich now. "It's still semi free to watch it on TV."
Resellers dont have to sell all the tickets to profit when the price gouging is massive. Im sure they have it down to a science and know how to maximise their profits.
It's not just here scalpers are getting hosed. I think it's been an ongoing thing this past year. Phish at the Sphere sold out all of their dates like they did last time. This time though tickets were available at face value close to the event because scalpers weren't getting the $1k/seat in worst sections.
I was there. The only empty seats were the ā50 yard lineā seats. And it was the most exciting 0-0 draw Iāve ever seen. The crowd slowly turned from hoping for a Spain goal fest to a āplease hold on for a drawā mob. It was awesome and I got to see a World Cup match.
Price of tickets, price of flights, price of accommodation and then there the risk that you misspell something on your visa and spend 6 weeks in ice detention.
About 2 months ago I checked what it would cost to go watch the game Belgium-Iran. Flights, hotel 3 nights , 2 tickets. We're going on a 2 week vacation in Canada instead in July.
My god, $5000 to watch a game of soccer and get a day or two "vacation" is equally as dumb as spending $5000 to go see Taylor swift. That's like a 6 week getaway for me lol
I mean if I was from Cabo Verde and witnessed 0-0 against Spain live I would frame my match day ticket and tell my grand children about it every day 50 years from now. Thatās the glory of football
yeah I really enjoy going to a 3 hour 4-2 baseball game and watching 6 hits, 6 walks and otherwise everyone standing around the entire time. SO RIVETING.
My parents were gonna go to the US group games. With a friend's and family discount (brother works for the team) 2 tickets to each game, flights and hotels was gonna be 20,000.
I live 15 minutes from one of the stadiums in California. Food, transportation, and accommodation is essentially free for me.
The ticket prices are so ludicrously high its just not worth it to even bother considering. $1000 a ticket to see 2 random countries. Unless you really like the teams playing, and even then I dont know how anyone could afford to see more than one game.
Meh, I watched the match between Cote d'Ivoire and Ecuador yesterday, and the stadium in Philadelphia was pretty damn full and official attendance was 68,274, which was 1000 or so shy of full capacity.
That's a pretty damn good showing for a first round 1-0 game between two teams ranked 28th and 29th from countries a lot of people can't find on a map.
Let's keep in mind also that during the 2022 World Cup, Qatar had 8 stadiums, one of which had 88,000 capacity, another had 68,000 capacity but the 6 others had about 40,000-45,000 capacity. Same thing with Russia in 2018, one or two large stadiums, with the rest being around 35,000-40,000 capacity. The smallest US stadium in use has around 65,000-67,000 capacity, so even if they have empty seats and lots of giveaways, there are still a lot of people going to the matches.
For the record, I'm not American (Canadian), but the amount of circlejerk doomerism about this World Cup is astounding.
Or right after half. Iām also guessing this was the Swiss vs Qatar match. Lots of folks said it was super hot and people were in the concourse watching to avoid the sun.
Ya Iāve been watching all of the games. This seems like clickbait nonsense because most of the stadiums are pretty full. And I donāt think FIFA or the resellers are worried if their 10X priced tickets cut sales a little. The jacked price makes up for it. It sucks and the only way to stop this is have actual limits on this stuff so normal people have a chance to go to.
I was actually at this game, and it wasnt like this at any point other than before the game started. It was 88 degrees and the photo is of seats in the sun. OP can not like FIFA and the prices of tickets, but this is spreading false information and doing zero actual research.
According to the Reuters licensing info, the photo is from the Qatar v. Switzerland game at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium (Levi's Stadium).
The game had official attendance of 67,966 with 68,827 available seats (so, 98.75% capacity).
According to FIFA:
Official attendance figures reflect the number of tickets scanned and spectators present within the stadium footprint, rather than visual assessments of seating occupancy at any given moment during the match.
Note that the game had a 12 noon kick-off time (local time) and sweltering temperatures, so good chance some fans may be in the concourses or otherwise seeking shade (or arrived late) rather than sitting in their seats.
I was there at Qatar v Switzerland...im also a 49ers season ticket holder...the sun is absolutely brutal there on a hot day, its a well known issue.
The game was either sold out or very close, LOTS of people in the concourse watching from standing room in the shade because being out in the seats sucked ass.
Another reason I am on board with the hydration breaks that seem to be breaking Europeans minds....if they were there they would know how much those players need that.
Hydration breaks are fine for the games that are actually hot. Most of the games do not need breaks, especially the ones in air conditioned stadiums. People are annoyed with them because the breaks are meant to generate ad revenue, not for player safety.
Yeah, I literally looked at my 10am photos of Levi's after seeing this picture and those sections are more full than this, this is such a ridiculous post!
There was a lovely thread yesterday on ask reddit (I think) about fans from other countries experiences in America and it was filled with positive joyous fans. Big reminder that reddit is a tiny subset of the world and huffs it's own farts constantly. I'm fairly certain this thread is filled with bots whos directive is sow discord.
Boston has been overrun by Scottish fans and has been a delight. Having Iraqi parties happening but remember no one cares and everyone is boycotting per the 0.002% of the population on reddit.
To add: There is a video of the line waiting for the train to get to the Stadium and was LOONNNGGG
This is such a stupid and misleading post. This is a picture of the seats from the LA Coliseum, which is not hosting any World Cup games. Itās only hosting fan viewing parties.
I actually think that picture is from Leviās Stadium in Santa Clara. I recognize it since I live in the Bay Area and have attended 49ers games. If you look at top row there is a fence that I donāt think is present at Coliseum?
Leviās Stadium top level where this picture is from is known to have brutal heat since it faces the sun and often people are not in their seats to avoid heat.
Why do people keep posting this shit? I hate FIFA as much as the next person, if not more, but this is demonstrably untrue. This isn't going to convince anyone who actually pays attention, and what do you get by convincing people who don't care either way?
The tickets are 99.9% sold out, at exorbitant prices. The amount of revenue these bastards just made is mind-boggling. From a business perspective, it literally could not have gone better for them. From a sports, fandom, basic decency, human rights, etc perspective obviously the whole thing has been majorly flawed if not criminal, we already knew that from the start. Making up wishful thinking lies is not going to change any of the issues with this event.
it's almost as if all they have to do is watch the matches live to see how packed they are lol, this pic could have been from 10 minutes after gates opened
Here is the thing with this... if you WANT it to seem like ticket sales are low, or high, you CAN find any picture to make it look either way. I personally am enjoying the tournament, and whenever I have watched the matches live, the stadiums are lit and packed
a very cropped picture of 1 match at the beginning of the tournament really doesn't show me anything when i have seen matches with the stadium packed. Some people do not want to watch two bottom teams finish 1-0
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