Why So Many World Cup Tickets Remain Unsold One Month Out

Only a month remains until the World Cup descends upon the U. S. , Mexico, and Canada, and thousands of tickets remain unsold, listed at extremely high prices.

Prices are starting to fall—barely—but FIFA will need a more dramatic drop in costs if it wants to fill stadiums, experts tell Front Office Sports . FIFA opened its alleged final “last minute” sales window on April 1, saying it would stay open through the tournament. This would be the first time that any member of the public could access tickets straight from FIFA without needing to be selected at random, or go through a federation or special offer.

But FIFA didn’t put up all remaining tickets on April 1. The global governing body made some tickets available that day , but said at the time that “tickets will continue to be released on a rolling basis,” and it has continued slowly releasing more inventory as the tournament gets closer. Sometimes, FIFA announces its releases, as the global governing body did for two drops April 22 and May 7.

The official announcement came two days before the April 22 drop and one day before the May 7 window. In these cases, fans wait for hours in the virtual queue, and when they finally get access to view tickets, they find prices that are higher than they want to pay, or experience glitches and error messages. In other instances, the inventory fluctuates without an official announcement.