World Cup ticket prices on secondary markets are continuing to decline as the tournament enters its home stretch, as all three hosts were eliminated plus popular teams in Brazil, Colombia, and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal.
There are only eight games left following a rash of exhilarating matches, including Argentina’s remarkable Tuesday comeback on the shoulders of superstar Lionel Messi. But despite the tournament’s drama hitting its peak, et get-in prices for the remaining matches on resale markets have plunged.
Compared to where ticket prices were at the start of the round of 16, the average drop across the four quarterfinal matches on resale markets is 52%, and the average across all remaining matches is about 42%, according to information provided to Front Office Sports by resale market tracking site TicketData.
TicketData founder Keith Pagello tells FOS that sellers were mostly pricing these matches around the “best-case, highest-demand scenarios.”
“They were more focused on not leaving money on the table if a heavyweight matchup materialized, rather than pricing in the risk of a less ideal outcome,” he says. “However, the less ideal outcome is basically what happened across the board.”
Ticket prices fluctuate in real time. When Argentina-Egypt began Tuesday, the average get-in price for the upcoming Saturday game featuring the winner of that match (Argentina) and Switzerland sat at $1,800. Prices dropped below $1,000 after Egypt took a 2–1 lead, but in a span of just 30 minutes rose back up to higher than $2,000 following Argentina’s comeback victory. As of Wednesday morning, tickets for that game on resale markets were going for an average of $1,527, according to TicketData.
Resale prices for the upcoming games have plummeted since the round of 16 opened and the participants in the upcoming quarterfinals matches were not yet known.
Drops with matchups set include:
- France–Morocco: $1,722 to $1,017 (41%)
- Spain–Belgium: $3,363 to $1,307 (61%)
- Norway–England: $3,991 to $1,813 (55%)
- Argentina–Switzerland: $2,666 to $1,324 (50%)
The Spain–Belgium matchup in Los Angeles is the game that could have featured the United States and/or Portugal, while Norway–England in Miami could well have been Brazil—Mexico instead.
The eventual match to crown the winner of the World Cup has also felt the dip—resale tickets for that final have fallen by $898, or 9%, since the start of the round of 16, from $9,740 to $8,842.
All of this continues a trend that had already started during the round of 32.
FIFA’s own website is also still offering a very limited number of tickets—a few hundred for most of the individual games—and depending on the match the costs can range significantly. Get-in prices for Thursday’s game between France and Morocco range from $1,645 to $3,525; Friday’s match between Spain and Belgium ranges from $1,345 to $7,595; there are only 44 tickets still available through FIFA for Saturday’s Norway vs. England match, all at $5,495; and fans can buy tickets through FIFA for the game between Argentina and Switzerland on Saturday for a low of $3,065 and a high of $6,695.
