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

Personally I always go for cargo shorts when attending games in summer. Not sexy but prefer to have no bag yet sufficient space for water bottle and battery pack.

 

that would work for me until I get pickpocketed in Mexico City or LA.

 

This is why I buy games pre-draw. I want the matches that are best for my schedule, not me chasing the dragon of a great matchup. I will always put the USA first. But after that, I will take what I can get.

I've gotten some absolute letdowns... Japan vs Greece in Brazil probably was the worst.

Best game was probably Argentina vs Iceland or Germany vs Mexico.

 

I was at that game! Indeed that was not a great match. But the USA Ghana match a few days before made up for it.

 

As a neutral that was a great group to watch in 2014. And I reckon that was Clint Dempsey at his best and that is the finest World Cup tournament any seppo has ever had.

 

The Canadian one seems better than the USA one.
Although Katy can still pack stadiums so maybe ticket sales will pick up now.

 

I thought Katy Perry was Canadian now.
Whatever the case: Diana Ross is only 82 and has had 32 years to practice penalties, here’s hoping she’ll be a surprise performer in LA.

 

Her penalty was better than Baggio’s

 

New Jersey MLS stadium Fan gatherings info:
https://www.newyorkredbulls.com/new...-stage-dates-throughout-fifa-world-cup-2026tm

 

Slowly getting there

 

This is M11?!

 

Lol

 

I was at Argentina vs. Iceland and Germany vs. Mexico. Amazing. Attended both with 20 friends.

 

Last couple of days you can see the beginning of the resellers feeling less and less confident. Now 28 game below facevalue and probably 3/4 already selling at a loss.

Whoever took loans to speculate on this thing is sitting on a big loss most likely....

 

Let's hope so but cannot help feeling an awful lot of them have already made a huge sack of cash in this appalling way to sell tickets.

 

I must say that Houston made a good plan for the Fan Fest location in terms of accessibility with Public Transportation, in a city where you need a car to survive.
You can go from Fan Fest to the Stadium all by metrorail paying $1.25.
So if someone is not familiar with the city and wants to avoid driving, I strongly encourage to find a place near a red line metrorail station.

 

Yup they made tons of money during the last few months on the desirable games and just took losses on the San Francisco games, games with World Cup newcomers, etc.

 

I was at both those matches as well (actually seated in the ARG and GER supporters sections :-( ) and I agree: Great atmosphere! (Frankly, Argentine section at any of their matches is great.) US supporters section for USAvGHA was even better!

Would love to see Colombia this summer, but those tickets are way out of reach for me and I don't expect they'll fall. ("The World Cup First-Round Game That Costs More Than a Ticket to the Super Bowl"; https://www.wsj.com/sports/soccer/colombia-portugal-world-cup-6c1f318b or if that link doesn't work, https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/fi...e-than-a-ticket-to-the-super-bowl/ar-AA22GeBG).

 

It doesn't appear that Baggio can do any better in 2026!
-->
(great WC 2026 Brahma beer commercial from Brazil)

 

Those match-exclusive brahma beer cups from the 2014 WC were the best. I wonder if they’ll have something similar for this upcoming one (or if they had them in 2018/2022).

 

At the qualifiers they gave themed Michelob cups, kinda similar to the 2022 ones but blue, no flags of the teams playing and sadly doesn't really look like there's enough space for those flags, so probably just generic cups for all games, they're still nice though.
There was also coke themed cups ('JAM - DRC', on them) but they were paper cups so I held off on those, maybe they'll be plastic in the tournament like in Qatar

 

Still have mine proudly displayed in my home office

 

All these reports of low hotel booking rates in host cities makes me think huge amounts of match tickets were purchased by resellers. I can’t really think of a more likely explanation than that, meaning a very large percentage of tickets are now held by people who never had any intention of attending the matches. Maybe there are a lot of ticket purchases by locals? At the high prices, it seems unlikely that casual fans would pay those. Are we looking at a massive ticket price bubble that will burst?

 

Very plausible when you also consider how quickly tickets get scooped up by bots. How much of the demand signal is actually real?

 

We won't know until gameday and we see how many fans are actually there. I'm guessing most games will be slammed. No idea what prices people will get in for but I do think the games will be full. It cannot be in best interest of a scalper to have an empty seat imo.

Now onto the hotel aspects. I have been screwed over many times by overzealous and bullshit hotels/airbnbs for the World Cup. Now I do think that every place that didn't gouge got scooped up and is fine. The other side is the rest of the world does not understand how much Americans are fine with driving. Being an hour outside a city and driving in is normal. I would assume that hotels in Fort Worth are well above average during the World Cup in terms of occupancy.

Our group is 12 guys. We could have gotten 6 hotel rooms, instead we got a house 90 minutes away that is a vacation in itself.

This is compounded by the fact that like only 2 or 3 stadiums are actually in the downtown area. Theres no reason to stay downtown for stupid prices if you have to travel for the game anyways.