Author: Zen, PANews

At 3:00 AM Beijing time on June 12, the highly anticipated 2026 FIFA World Cup will officially kick off in Mexico City.

This World Cup is hailed as an unprecedented mega-event, featuring 48 teams and a total of 104 matches, held across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, this will be the highest-grossing World Cup in history.

However, on the eve of the opening ceremony, this World Cup is facing a ticket shortage. According to the Financial Times, with only a few matches remaining before the opening game, approximately 180,000 World Cup group stage tickets are still available for resale. For a top-tier sporting event long considered a global spectacle, this contrast is truly glaring.

This isn't because the World Cup itself has lost its global appeal; in fact, the betting industry has touted this World Cup as the "greatest betting opportunity" in history. As of June 11, event contracts on the Polymarket platform regarding the World Cup champion's outcome had already approached $2 billion. Such massive investment even before the tournament began demonstrates the immense popularity of the event.

Therefore, the problem of "difficulty in selling tickets" lies more in FIFA's ticket sales mechanism, and also exposes the side effects of FIFA's radical commercialization experiment in the ticketing system of this World Cup.

FIFA's bizarre ticketing tactic: Buy "digital collectibles" before you buy tickets.

One of the most controversial ticketing arrangements for this World Cup is FIFA's sale of so-called "Right-To-Buy" (RTB) tickets through the FIFA Collect platform.

Unlike traditional ticketing products, RTB is a type of "digital right" or "digital collectible" designed around the qualification to obtain World Cup tickets. It is issued and circulated through the FIFA Collect digital collectible platform, and the issued digital collectibles are essentially NFTs . The FIFA Collect platform initially ran on the Algorand blockchain, and in May 2025 it migrated to the FIFA Blockchain, which was built on Avalanche technology.

According to FIFA Collect's official explanation, holding an RTB simply allows fans to have the opportunity to purchase tickets for a specific match during a designated window. Each RTB specifies how many tickets the holder can purchase in the future, and which match or event it corresponds to, but it does not include the ticket itself.

This mechanism breaks down ticket buying into two steps: first, it sells scarcity, and then it sells the actual tickets . However, when fans buy RTB tickets, they often don't know the final seating area, the full price, or how much value this "priority" will actually have in the future.

Regarding pricing, RTBs do not have a uniform price; instead, they vary based on the importance of the match, the number of tickets available, and market supply and demand. Previously, on the FIFA Collect platform, RTBs for different matches ranged from tens to hundreds of dollars, with some popular matches or RTBs containing multiple tickets fetching even higher prices on the secondary market.

According to the British sports business media SportsPro, FIFA has previously earned tens of millions of dollars through these RTB sales.

When tickets are extremely scarce and prices are not yet fully clear, this design that encourages fans to pay in advance may make some sense. However, when the official platform still has a large number of tickets available for sale, the awkward situation of RTB becomes apparent—if tickets are not as difficult to buy as imagined, the rationale for spending hundreds of dollars in advance to purchase "ticket eligibility" is re-examined.

It's not just expensive, it's also expensive in a way that's opaque and constantly changing.

The main competitions of this tournament are concentrated in the US market, which is the world's most mature and expensive live sports entertainment market. NFL, NBA, MLB and other events have long used business models such as high ticket prices, box seats, dynamic pricing and secondary markets. After FIFA entered this market, it was natural for them to want to match the World Cup's pricing.

FIFA adopted a dynamic pricing or variable pricing model for this World Cup, meaning ticket prices could be adjusted based on demand, inventory, and sales stage. Early on, officials emphasized that some group stage tickets would start at $60, but this low-price tier was limited in number. Many more tickets were priced far higher than fans expected, with some popular group stage matches costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars, while knockout stage and final prices were outrageously high.

It is understood that the actual cost of tickets for this World Cup is approximately 2 to 4 times that of the previous Qatar World Cup, with popular matches, the opening match, and the final reaching 4 to 7 times the cost. The problem is that the World Cup is not a typical commercial league. Its audience is not just local high-income sports consumers, but ordinary fans from all over the world. Many people need to travel across continents, book flights and hotels in advance, and incur costs for city transportation in order to support their national teams. For these fans, ticket prices are only one part of the total cost, but it becomes the most uncontrollable part.

What angered fans even more was the lack of transparency regarding ticketing. European fan and consumer organizations complained to FIFA that the company did not fully disclose the remaining ticket availability and specific seating arrangements for each price tier in the early stages of the process. Some fans were unable to fully confirm their seat's view and location when purchasing tickets, yet were still required to pay exorbitant fees. This information asymmetry significantly amplified the feeling of being "manipulated."

Currently, FIFA's ticketing system has not only sparked commercial controversy but has also come under the scrutiny of public regulators. Authorities in New York and New Jersey have launched investigations into World Cup ticketing, focusing on seating information, ticket promotion, and the existence of so-called "artificial scarcity."

Official resale platforms amplify price anxiety

FIFA launched an official resale platform specifically for this World Cup, theoretically intended to provide fans with a safe environment for buying and selling tickets and reduce fraud and black market transactions. However, while this platform improved transaction security, it did not enhance the ticket-buying experience for fans.

European fan associations and consumer organizations have criticized FIFA for charging fees to both buyers and sellers on official resales, allowing the company to continue profiting from subsequent transactions after the initial sale of tickets. According to a Financial Times report citing ticketing rules, sellers on FIFA's official resale platform pay approximately 10% in service fees, while buyers pay an additional 17% in handling fees and related surcharges.

In other words, if a ticket is resold through an official platform, the combined cost to both parties is close to 27% of the ticket price. This allows FIFA to not only enjoy high ticket prices in the primary market but also continue to capture revenue from the resale market.

As of now, FIFA is still selling tens of thousands of group stage tickets. For scalpers and speculators who were hoping to profit by reselling at a higher price and who had previously hoarded tickets at inflated prices, even if they were listed at the original price, they would still incur actual losses after deducting platform fees.

Of course, the 180,000 tickets available for resale won't necessarily lead to a large number of empty seats at this World Cup. FIFA President Gianni Infantino stated at a pre-opening press conference that over 6 million tickets have already been sold, and that demand exceeds expectations by "10 times or more." Popular matches, host nation games, knockout stages, and the final will still attract significant attention. As the matches begin, emotions build, and teams' qualification prospects become clearer, some of the remaining tickets may be sold.

The significance of this controversy lies in its reminder that even with strong overall World Cup sales, this tournament has demonstrated that fan enthusiasm does not equate to unlimited willingness to pay, and there remains a boundary that ticket prices and ticketing mechanisms cannot easily cross. The World Cup's global influence does not mean FIFA can endlessly exploit this emotional premium.

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