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NEW YORK — Ticket prices for Sunday’s World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey spiked on secondary resale markets the day before the match between Spain and Argentina at 3 p.m. ET.
The get-in price rose to about $10,000 on Saturday, according to the ticket-resale tracking site TicketData. Spain and Argentina locked in their spots for the final on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
Around 5 p.m. ET on Saturday, FIFA still had tickets available on its secondary resale market, on which it takes a 15% cut from both the buyer and seller. The cheapest ticket of $8,050 was listed as “easy access,” intended for fans with accessibility issues, but the least expensive standard ticket was $9,775.
By 12:45 p.m. Sunday, the get-in price had fallen to $6,826, down 12% over the previous three days.
Some tickets were listed for exorbitant amounts on the FIFA site, including about $2.3 million for both easy access and standard tickets.
The match is on track to be one of the most expensive sporting events ever, if not claiming the title outright. The $10,000 get-in price sets a record, as does an average ticket price of $18,822, Sporting News reported Saturday morning, citing data from TickPick.
The get-in price for the match has risen and fallen several times on resale sites since tickets were first released last year, according to TicketData.
The get-in surpassed $13,000 in October before dropping to roughly $6,500, then sat around $8,500 from December to May. The prices climbed once the tournament began last month and peaked around $12,000 in late June, before collapsing along with other knockout round matches down to around $6,500 earlier this week. Prices slowly increased this week before taking a big jump on Friday afternoon. As of Saturday evening, prices had fallen from their high point to around $9,000.
“At this stage you’re dealing with a thin market where it doesn’t take a huge number of transactions to move the get-in price,” Ticketdata founder Keith Pagello tells Front Office Sports.
He points to a similar trend at last year’s College Football Championship, where prices dropped the morning of the game before going back up later in the day. He also says that at some point, people just want to go ahead and pull the trigger instead of waiting for prices to come back down.
MetLife, which can fit 80,663 spectators for World Cup matches, has the highest official FIFA capacity of any stadium in the U.S. by more than 10,000 seats. That means FIFA can make millions more dollars in ticket sales alone by hosting the final in New Jersey rather than another destination such as Dallas, which nearly got picked for the match.
MetLife is outdoors, which has raised concerns about playing conditions due to heat, storms, and poor air quality caused by Canadian wildfires.
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