From the game audio, Seattle brought it big time, and from the drama and tense moments and the final result, I'm going to guess that no one (or at least no US fan) left feeling that it wasn't worth it, no matter what the price was.
I think this needs to be taken into context. First off, the logistics for this tournament are flawed. Why isn't Miami, home of some of the largest South American communities, considered for a venue? Charlotte and even Atlanta might have made sense too. New York has South American communities yet it wasn't considered, either. No, just put the games in big, fancy, American football stadiums. Second, most Americans won't bother for a game not involving the US or some other big team, if they can watch it on TV. It might be different if the prices were cheaper, but believe me, Americans will watch events on TV. It's not the fact that the tourney is in the US but the marketers assumed Americans would go to these games for outrageous prices. It's the approach that's been the failure.
Miami was not available because the stadium is under construction. However, orlando was a abd choice, should have been Atlanta. Uh, NY is where the game tonight is being played and the final? Theres no stadium in NY proper. TV ratings havent been spectacular either. Univision is killing FS1 for every game, including when team USA is playing. Fox dropped the ball. Hard.
Atlanta's playing surface situation might have cost them. TV ratings have been better than expected. And considering how much FOX paid for this tournament (A tournament that was in the balance due to Federal investigations) I believe they are more than happy with the numbers.
Yes, it does. Some WCQ are meaningless in that the team has clinched qualification to the next round of qualifying or to the World Cup. Those games are still WCQ but are relatively meaningless. A Copa America Semi-final is more important than a meaningless WCQ and even still if you lose a game in the Hex there is some room for error. One loss doesn't mean you won't go to the World Cup.
So tix that were available for $150 or so a few weeks ago for the final are now "worth" 3x that? Phuck you, organizers.
I was going to say, I'm not sure what the "organizers" have to do with ticket prices changing at this point, and my guess would have been that prices would come down some at this point, as the presence of team Mexico has generally brought demand that has significantly increased prices. Of course, perhaps that tickets would gone up 6x instead of only 3x if Mexico had won yesterday, and perhaps the prices are starting to increase as some are more confident (rightly or wrongly) that Messi will play in the Final.
On Stubhub, cheapest tickets for US/Argentina ($120) are basically double the price of Chile/Colombia ($60+). Guessing it's due to thousands of disappointed Mexicans unloading seats, but still surprised a semi ticket is going for less than many of the group stage matches.
Mexico getting demolished is the main reason. So many Mexicanos in the Chicago land area really thought they'd be there. Heck. there were many people I know who thought Mexico-Brazil was inevitable. Now they just want to get rid of their tickets. Another factor is the USA. Many people thought they would finish in second and I assume bought tickets thinking that would happen and upsetting whoever got first in Group B. And the biggest factor of them all is the plain and simple fact there just aren't too many Colombians and Chileans in the Chicago area when compared to the East Coast or Florida.
What permutation of the remaining teams would be the highest price finals ticket? Here's my best guess, most to least expensive: 1) Argentina/Colombia 2) USA/Colombia 3) Argentina/Chile 4) USA/Chile
We'll never know, and semi #1 is in the books already, but I think I'd go 1, 3, 2, 4 from your list. I think Colombia has a pretty good following going, which gives them the edge over Chile, but while a USA victory would have been significant, the biggest draw of all is Argentina #10. Messi is putting more people in seats than any team, and plenty of people will fork over big bucks for a rare opportunity to see him, with it being a bonus to see him in a final, and better yet in what should be a good game with both Colombia and Chile being quality opponents.
Argentina/Colombia would have the highest ticket prices because there are a lot more Colombianos in the New York area than Chileans. It is that simple.
Argentinians and Colombians. They show up and they are in force. Plane to Brazil was a sea of yellow. Love their energy. The Chilean crowd at Belo Horizonte r16 though... The Chilean crowd in Levi's was small, but active. Wish I could post this video of one lady swinging her blue and red in a sea of green