Going to North America '26: tickets, accommodations, etc. (non-politics)

Bit of a sidetopic but anyone planning on pulling the trigger on the Official Match Ball set by Adidas? the one where only 2026 sets are made and includes Official match balls of all WC's? I've been trying to justify and convine myself seeing it as an investment but 2.5k USD is way too much lol

 

Because people who really want to watch their team play (apart from the hosts) aren't buying tickets yet. This phase only attracts the World Cup tourists.

 

Congrats on everyone who got tickets through the Domestic portal, the excitement through the screen was palpable!

In asking around it seems like not many people knew this second phase was occurring….bodes well for us here I think as numbers should be down compared to last month.

Hoping my luck finally changes and I get a time slot at the international draw and grab the few games in Vancouver I’d like

 

The big matches will get crazy expensive and the non-desirable matches will drop below face and the rest will stay about the same, IMO

 

Depends on the matchup. With the current FIFA prices, the only teams that might command those prices would be Mexico or USA in the final. Maybe Colombia. I don’t think you will be able to resell a Cat 1 final ticket for face value with a matchup of 2 Euro teams. Argentina was in the final last time and tickets were reselling for $2K day of.

 

I was just thinking this tonight exactly. any south american team will be bring the $, a couple europeans won't

 

How’s the inventory looking now, after two days?

 

When is the actual schedule going to be known? I thought it would be announced with the draw, but I read in another forum that it would actually be after that? e.g. I have tickets to a match that is between two teams in Group E, but at this time I don't know if it's E1 vs E2, or E1 vs E3, or what exactly. When will actually know that and how is it established?

 

$620 per ticket! For a seat that may very well end up being in a corner in the 2nd level... to watch Surinam play Hungary? I say this is crazy!
San Francisco prices are such that you pay $620 for a lousy game in the first round which is MORE than the $590 for a round of 16 (yes, round of 16!) in Vancouver and all other cities (except NY)! FIFA is racketeering the Bay Area (and Los Angeles) residents.

 

We don’t know for sure. I expect it will be a day or two after the draw.

 

I don't think you can say FIFA have exhausted buyers pre-draw when people such as yourself haven't had any access to tickets yet. FIFA know how many applicants there have been, how many have been given slots and what the slot to sales conversion rate is. They also know how many have already been released to their resale portal and how well they're selling. If they were concerned about sales they would have released more slots this time.

I do think that post draw a lot of matches will reduce in price. Others will get even more expensive. It is a certainty that Brazil and Argentina matches will increase in price, including for their likely knock out matches. I think demand, measured in dollars, is very high. At unprecedented levels. There will be matches in the group stage that will bomb and maybe in the round of 16.

 

The discrepancy with the VISA phase is interesting. We shouldn't be surprised at Atlanta tickets selling well, it is the city with the largest MLS crowds.

 

That's a very interesting point and had no idea. Particularly as last season the team were rubbish.

 

Stats at the link below, if you're interested. The two LA teams get slightly more combined but the two New York teams don't. Atlanta's attendances are the most impressive, in my opinion. They have also had much larger crowds for play off matches and when the stadium first opened.

https://www.worldfootball.net/competition/co73/usa-major-league-soccer/se84074/2025/attendance/

 

It is interesting that bar a couple of teams all the attendances are very close to each other.

 

any info how RTB conversion/sales phase went?

 

I think it is to do with the way US sport is commercialised. They want to keep supply below demand so that prices rise. Just like they're trying with this World Cup. Atlanta and Seattle play in giant NFL stadiums but the others have mostly built stadia that they can sell out, or hope to sell out regularly in the near future. With central planning of team locations they try to keep market size similar so that support bases are roughly similar. Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen might as well be the mantra of US sports teams owners.

Baseball is a bit different because there are at least 81 home matches and demand varies so much they have excess capacity for the less attractive matches but ramp up prices for the biggest games.

 

As badly as expected.

Website couldn’t cope with lots of RTBs being burnt at the same time. Also, some people weren’t seeing the RTBs they owned. Website now down for maintenance and back open later.

Prices in line with current sale despite communication they would be Visa pre-sale prices.

Few Cat 3s available, isolated to Toronto games, Semi Final and Final.

Right-to-Tickets are tradable on the FIFA Collect platform with a 15% sale fee (no buyer fee) until conversion to App/QR ticket May/June.

 

Yes. I would be surprised if you got anywhere near your money back when trying to resell these on the resale platform when the draw is announced (fee is 15%?????) if it's for a mediocre/poor quality game. I would hesitate to pay that for an England game. Crazy money!

 

How quickly did the available tickets get sold in the first phase? It's about 48 hours in to this presale and most of the group stage matches and R32/R16 still have tickets available.

 

Difficult to be precise but from when I got in I woudl say it took 3-4 days to get to a similar level of sales compared to this one.

 

Note that there are fewer tickets in the Domestic Exclusivity tranche. VISA was a million, while Domestic + International is a million

 

Yes that is right but one might take these figures with a pinch of salt and they may offer more tickets whilst demand is high and the draw has not been made.

 

Yeah I’m sure they are adjusting the ticket quantities to maximize profit. Related, they can adjust seat categories on the fly too: “The number of seats allocated to each Ticket Category and the boundaries of each Ticket Category within a Stadium may change from Match to Match and are determined by FIFA Ticketing at its sole discretion.”

 

They could also be offering fewer tickets to make demand appear to be higher than it actually is. The reality is, none of us know for sure either way.