FIFA Club World Cup Eve Updates
Club World Cup Ticket Update
Tickets are wildly available. Just Google it and you’ll see stories of how many tickets are available for every game barring a few (high profile European teams playing each other). You’ll see (personally, I find these positive) offers of discount ticket deals to people like students and other organizations to try and fill seats (the most publicized are 5 tickets for $20 to students at Miami-Dade College). At this point I’m just going to hold out until the game and just figure out an hour before if I should go. If Ticketmaster’s Dynamic Pricing was truly fair, they would be even cheaper at this point. You can also tell that they’re shutting sections of some of the stadiums to try and consolidate fans into the sightlines of the broadcast cameras and artificially reduce the supply and maintain prices. This has caused a bunch of people to report that they’ve been relocated and given new tickets of equal or higher value. There have been mixed reviews on this.
I’m still keeping an eye out for the Semifinals in July. I do think that will be a good high profile match that will be worth going to. However, I think the double semifinals and final for a poorly marketed tournament in a single city has hurt its excitement. MetLife also just isn’t very convenient to get to. Also the times of the games are pretty rough. Something to keep an eye on for next year’s World Cup, they’ll adjust the games locally to be at good broadcast times for the World. So think noon / 3pm games (when we often watch marquee matchups in Europe). Here are the five group stage games currently:
You can see how there are just massive grey areas in all the games where there are neither blue (direct sales) or red (resales). I mean that’s a lot of blue that is unsold. Basically three quarters of the third tier, and nearly half of the second tier are just not being sold anymore. Those random red resales are probably tickets that haven’t been properly relocated yet. It looks like the two weekend games will retain some of the third tier, whereas the three week day games are looking isolated to the second tier. Ticket prices for the cheapest seats has dropped ~10-12% since I last reported. Between $33-$48 now. And there are still plenty left.
FIFA and other soccer governing bodies are obsessed with the American market and are constantly trying to gouge Americans for higher ticket prices. And just the reality is… people in America just don’t have that much money. We have a lot, don’t get me wrong. But not enough to spend on all of this entertainment. People are getting more selective, and it just doesn’t make that much sense to go to these games for their original prices. Sell out the stadium first, create demand and an atmosphere and then increase prices. People want to go when other people want to go. No one wants to be in an empty stadium. Or think that they overpaid for a product. At least I certainly don’t.
I’m vastly curious how the opening match will go. I’m really hoping for an upset and hope all of the non-European teams go hard and do well. Really shake up those European giants.
If you do want to watch, you’ll have to get the DAZN app, available on most tv’s and streaming platforms. It’s free to watch the matches live. Additional coverage, shows, and replays will cost you $24 for the month to upgrade.
Supporter Refunds
I got very lucky. The only tickets I’ve already purchased were Supporters tickets for Borussia Dortmund at MetLife. I did this through an application in December. I received approval through a lottery on January 8th. I imagine the process will be relatively similar for the World Cup. It seems that it will differ relatively greatly from the previous World Cup’s because of Ticketmaster’s stranglehold on the large stadiums in the USA. See the receipt below:
I purchased four tickets for my brother, nephew, friend, and myself. It was $116 each ($464 in total) for Club Fans Lower Tier. Over time it became clear that I had overpaid. I had assumed it was just a personal mistake for being baited by FIFA, but on June 5th, after tickets had dropped in price again and again, I received this email.
Sure enough, FIFA had done the “right” thing, and exchanged my tickets for the same tickets, and refunded me the difference that they’re currently being retailed for. Bringing my cost down to $47 a ticket ($188 in total). Saving me $69 a ticket (or $276 in total).
Given that they were under no legal obligation to do this, I’m pretty grateful. Enough people must have complained to have gotten their attention, and to them, I’m grateful. That said, I can’t help but be cynical and think this was an obvious thing for FIFA to do. The group that purchased the tickets early are their most ardent supporters (or the best at compartmentalizing / most willing to set aside their distaste of the organization for the product). Plus, I imagine I’m not alone in this situation, I’m not considering it “free” money and am looking to spend it on other tickets for the tournament. Call it boy math!
The sad part to this, is that it seems that no one who purchased their tickets directly from Ticketmaster will be getting this refund. It is also unclear if you would get this reset refund for tickets as part of any FIFA schemes. e.g. The buy two tickets and get an option to buy another at the World Cup. I doubt that these other schemes would be refunded, since based on everything I’ve evaluated, they really overvalue the Right to Buy at the World Cup next year.
MetLife Supporter Sections
I don’t have to explain this much, it’s more fun to go to a sporting event and sit with fans of the same team. Home games are more fun if they are well attended by passionate people who support the team. It’s common knowledge. The risk of neutral venues is not having a substantial home presence for either team. It’s important for the good of the event to have supporters sections that are clearly delineated so people know which side of the stadium they should sit in if they have a preference. While FIFA has implemented this standard system, they don’t really mention it much, which is really annoying for people purchasing tickets wanting to align. I thought I would help out and share where each supporter section will be for each of the MetLife group stage matches. Supporters Sections are generally behind each goal. So those two orange areas in the image below.
For simplicity, we’ll call sections 149, 101, 103, and 104 the Left Side, and sections 123, 124, 126, and 128 the Right Side. So for coordination purposes, just assume anything on that quarter of the stadium (behind the net) is where you should pick seats if you want to be with a particular teams supporters. The central areas are more neutral and mixed. So here’s the information on the five group stage matches at MetLife for Palmeiras, Porto, Dortmund, Fluminense, Al Ahly, and Ulsan.
I spoke to fans at some of the clubs, and generally you should follow these rules if you’re sitting in their section. However, it seems like there will be plenty of space, so you could always move if you think you’re not fitting in.
But wait, with those ticket maps from earlier, we can basically figure out who is popular, or at least who is popular in New York in June. Here are those five again, with a rough shape of how many supporters purchased their ticket early / at all. I can’t figure out which side is which for M36, but the other four, I drew in some squares roughly estimating how many supporters are coming for each matchup.
It looks like the first match is best sold and most supported. This roughly tracks. It’s first, it’s on a weekend and it has two relatively known teams. This was also my most recommended match of the MetLife games. So based on all of this logic, I should probably go. In other low effort analyses, it looks like Al Ahly did not buy tickets for their match against Palmeiras. I thought this game would sell better because it’s America’s youngest federal holiday. Ulsan HD doesn’t have a great showing in their match either.
Note that the left side is closer to north than west. The train station is closer to the Right Side as well.
