Wanderings – Priced out of the game

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years, you’ve heard that the FIFA World Cup will be hosted in North America this year. Forty-eight men’s national football teams will descend on cities across the United States, Mexico, including Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. And to answer a question I get asked frequently because of my involvement and interest in the sport – no, I am not going.

FIFA, the international governing body for football (soccer) and the 2026 organizers are under fire from fans and supporters of the game for the cost of tickets – rightly so. This year’s World Cup is the most expensive to attend, more so than the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

At the time of writing this column, the average single person ticket price for a match in Toronto is about $3,000 per person. That is not a typo. $3,000! I did some price shopping. For the same price as the average Toronto World Cup match, my wife Isabell and I can fly to Dortmund, Germany to see my favourite Bundesliga club Dortmund play Bayern Munich. For only $200 less, we can fly to Milan, Italy for a weekend to watch my favourite Italian football club, AC Milan play a Serie A match. And for $500 less, we can fly to London, England to watch my favourite Premier League club, West Ham United take on Liverpool. In all three instances, the prices include airfare, accommodations, and match tickets, priced in Canadian dollars. Also in all three instances, the tickets are for better seat locations than my $3,000 for a Toronto ticket.

Before I continue, I will acknowledge that there are some ways to get tickets cheaper than retail. If you bank with a certain bank, or are a customer of a certain cell phone company, or a high-paying member of Canada Soccer’s CanadaRED membership program, you could get some cheaper tickets. CanadaRED members can get tickets based on the organization’s ticket allocation from FIFA. CanadaRED paid membership tiers begin at $50 per year, and top out at $5,000 per year. Can you guess where the ticket allocation skews its benefits?

Even if I was to get tickets, by gift or an insanely low pricing error, good luck getting a hotel room that doesn’t cost a mortgage payment -— or three. Hotel rooms were cheaper during Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour than they are for the World Cup.

Some context is needed here. The cost for tickets to Qatar’s 2022 World Cup ranged from $220 to about $1,800 (Canadian dollars) per person, and round-trip airfare started at about $1,200. Not cheap, but again the experience included going to Qatar. No offence to Toronto, but it ain’t no Doha.

There is a lot of pushback from fans over the cost to attend and watch the World Cup in person.

FIFA has acquiesced a bit, releasing more blocks of tickets, and lowering the prices for supporter tickets. But this doesn’t affect those who wanted to go from the three host countries. If you are a member of a visiting country’s supporters club such as England or Portugal, you might get a better-priced ticket.

It is interesting to note that the marketing and sponsorship money alone that FIFA will rake in from the 2026 World Cup will be in the $2.5–$3 billion range. When the initial Canada-U.S.-Mexico bid was selected in 2018, organizers said they expected the tournament would generate $14 billion in revenue and FIFA would see an $11 billion profit. Given the price of a ticket in Toronto, I am sure it is going to be much more.

Like millions of priced-out fans, I will happily watch the games from the comfort of my home. At least that’s affordable to watch, and the snacks are priced right too!