It is $379 for an upper deck ticket at Al Ahly against Inter Miami. It is $172 for a seat at the very top of Lumen Field for a group stage match between Botafogo and the Seattle Sounders. It could cost $2,230 for a “lower tier” ticket to the final, according to one since-deleted graphic on Bayern Munich website. And some of those prices could change, as 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 on Thursday. And they have opened a window into how FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, will attempt to reap unprecedented profits from the American market over the next two summers – first from the inaugural Club World Cup, then 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 well over $100 for most seats in the upper tier in the first batch of tickets released Thursday. They cost over $200 for most lower and mid-level seats around corners or beyond a baseline.
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 new and unproven tournament that has attracted significantly less interest broadcasters, sponsors and fans.
In Qatar, tickets for a World Cup semi-final ranged from $137 to $956. In the United States, three summers later, conditional tickets for a Club The World Cup semifinal will cost registered fans of a participating team $526 in the “upper tier” of MetLife Stadium and $995 in the “lower tier,” according to the publish on the Bayern website – which has now been amended to remove knockout prizes.
Tickets for these knockout matches will go on sale to the public on January 16, FIFA announced. Thursday’s opening of a four-week sales window was for group stage matches only – and does not yet include lower tier seats, which appear to be the most expensive.
But already the prices are “alarming,” said Bailey Brown, president of the Independent Supporters Councila group representing soccer fans in the United States and Canada, told Yahoo Sports in an email.
“We are genuinely concerned about the overall increase in ticket prices for major tournaments in North America,” she wrote, and (we) believe that many of the most passionate fans will no longer be able to take advantage of this sport because of this. We are concerned about ticket prices for the next World Cup in 2026, if the Club World Cup is a sign of things to come.”
Club World Cup tickets and “adaptive pricing”
Prices, to some extent, are the result of a rushed and uncertainty-filled planning process. To launch this Club World Cup, FIFA had to secure a dozen venues and therefore had to negotiate with stadium owners across the United States. These negotiations, which ultimately resulted in a announcement at the end of Septemberrequired compromises between two profit-seeking entities, stadium owners and FIFA.
So, rather than selling tickets on its own website, FIFA agreed to sell through Ticketmaster, which already has partnerships with most of the 12 stadiums; and presumably agreed to share some of the ticket revenue.
They also agreed to a system similar to Ticketmaster’s famous “dynamic pricing”. in which prices fluctuate based on demand, so sellers and event organizers can maximize their revenue. A FIFA spokesperson clarified that “adaptive pricing” for the Club World Cup is not automated, but confirmed that organizers could adjust prices over time, between now and June, when start of the tournament. A presentation text “important information about the event” on the entire Ticketmaster 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 football tournaments like the World Cup or the European Championships, organizers like FIFA and UEFA set fixed prices and sell the tickets through their own online portals. Ahead of Qatar 2022, FIFA divided tickets into four categoriesand established a price that would apply to each category for all matches in a given round. A Category 3 ticket to any group stage match, for example, costs $69; a Category 1 ticket costs $220 in the group stage, $275 in the round of 16, and more for a quarter-final or semi-final.
At Euro 2024a similar system priced group stage tickets at $32, $64, $160 and $215 up to Category 1, and $430 for “Prime seats”. These figures increased for the knockout matches, but never changed once UEFA announced them and put the tickets online on their website.
Tickets for the Club World Cup, on the other hand, are treated more like tickets for the 2024 Copa América, and as are many tickets for American sports. Prices have been set based on anticipated demand for a given match and therefore vary depending on team, time, venue, stadium and other factors.
For Inter Miami’s home opener at Hard Rock Stadium, a top-tier corner ticket costs $223; a final level 200 ticket costs $558 (including fees but before taxes).
For Miami’s second game, against Porto in Atlanta, a higher-level sideline ticket costs $134.
For another Group A match between Palmeiras and Al Ahly, on a Thursday at noon at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, a top-tier sideline ticket costs a hair over $100.
These first batches of tickets for all Group A and B matches went on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. Similar lots for the rest of the groups were scheduled to go on sale at 1 p.m. (groups 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
In addition, “FIFA has also ensured a quota of tickets for supporters of the clubs participating in each match,” the organization indicated in a press release. These tickets will be sold via “access codes” provided by each of the 32 clubs, and will not be subject to “adaptive pricing”; rather, they will be grouped into “dedicated price categories”.
Some clubs, like Manchester Citypublished information on their access processes this week; and some, like Bayern and Borussia Dortmundrevealed the prices set. Bayern said that, for its opening match against Auckland City in Cincinnati, “higher tier” tickets would cost $45 and “lower tier” tickets $107. For its second match, against the Argentine giant Boca Juniors in Miami, these prices amount to 76 and 161 dollars. (They are probably placed on the back line behind a goal.)
Club-specific sales will also include “conditional tickets up to the final”, FIFA said, “with these tickets being confirmed once the club (chosen by a fan) qualifies for the match in question”.
Bayern’s message suggests prices will rise sharply as the knockout rounds progress, with the cheapest category for the Club World Cup final priced at $892.
Next up: 2026 World Cup tickets
For some fans, the prices confirmed or exacerbated fears that tickets for the 2026 World Cup would be prohibitively expensive.
Historically, World Cup tickets have been sold exclusively by FIFA, rather than through a third-party broker, and have not been subject to dynamic pricing. But fans and insiders nonetheless expect 2026 to be the most expensive World Cup ever.
While vying for the right to host the tournament, Proposed North American Football Officials prices that averaged $305 per ticket for the group stage.
The North American bid, based on its projections, presented an overall ticket revenue estimate of $1.8 billion. More recently, Budgeted by FIFA more than $3 billion in ticketing and hospitality revenue across the 2023-26 World Cup cycle – a big increase from less than $1 billion during 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 of these estimates conservative, especially given the new format of the tournament, which has 104 matches.
Price decisions are now in the hands of FIFA, which has kept its plans. Tickets are not expected to go on sale until the second half of 2025. But clues will emerge when FIFA markets hospitality packages in the coming months.
The American windfall from FIFA
The 2026 World Cup – which will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, but with 80 of the 104 matches played in the United States – is expected to bring in more than $10 billion in total revenue, up from about $4 billion dollars spent on FIFA. This will be by far the most lucrative sports tournament of all time.
The 2025 Club World Cup, on the other hand, is murkier financially. Even with a Billion-dollar global broadcast deal signedFIFA would fail to meet its initial revenue expectations.
In a document However, released earlier this month, FIFA promised that its reserves, which total $4 billion, “will remain intact.” All operating costs, appearance fees and prize money paid to clubs “will be fully covered by tournament revenue”. And beyond these expenses, the document specifies, “for the first time, a solidarity model will redistribute net income to football clubs around the world. This model will be calibrated according to the final commercial success of the tournament.
This success will largely depend on commercial agreements and, of course, ticket sales.
