Weeks before the June 11 kickoff, thousands of 2026 World Cup tickets remain unsold — Arlington reported only 35-50% sold, and at least nine group games still have 1,000-plus seats available. The cause isn't a lack of interest but FIFA's first-ever use of full dynamic pricing: $380 group "get-in" seats, a US-opener listing at $4,105, and final tickets that climbed to a $32,970 tier. Resale prices are now falling on most matches.

1. FIFA Is Scalping Its Own Fans (Football Supporters Europe, Congress)

An algorithm built to extract the most money emptied the seats and priced out the diehards.

The empty seats are self-inflicted, not a demand problem. FIFA says it received 508 million ticket requests for roughly 7 million seats, so interest is enormous — the problem is a new algorithm that's pricing everyone one. Football Supporters Europe, which filed an EU complaint, says the North American bid promised seats as cheap as $21 but delivered a tiny $60 tier instead, and director Ronan Evain said FIFA leaves loyal fans to "pay up or lose out."

The backlash is bipartisan and unusually broad. Nearly 70 House Democrats warned dynamic pricing would make the Cup "the most financially exclusionary and inaccessible to date" and accused FIFA of holding tickets back to fake scarcity; New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani backed a "Game Over Greed" petition. Even President Trump said he "wouldn't pay" around $1,000 for the US opener. As the fan groups put it, the fact that scalping is legal doesn't mean FIFA had to become the scalper.

2. It's Just What Big Events Cost Now (Gianni Infantino, Don Garber)

Dynamic pricing is standard for marquee US sports — and the slow categories will clear.

America already uses demand-based algorithms. FIFA President Gianni Infantino defends the model bluntly: "We are in the market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world, so we have to apply market rates," noting the World Cup is FIFA's only real income every four years. MLS Commissioner Don Garber called the approach "a good idea," and FIFA compares it to the Super Bowl.

Falling resale prices are the system working, not failing. Resale is down about 24% in a month and dropping on more than 90% of matches — exactly what a market does when it overshoots, before it clears. The unsold inventory is mostly second-tier group games that adjust downward, and FIFA did add a fixed $60 supporter tier. The catch this camp glosses over: that tier is only hundreds of seats per match.

3. This Whole Thing Is Stupid (Peter Moore)

They're treating a 48-team, three-country event like a concert. Empty seats are the predictable output.

Dynamic pricing fits last-minute buyers, not fans planning a continent-crossing trip a year out. Former Liverpool CEO Peter Moore calls it "dystopian, and an existential threat to the game," arguing the model suits live music but not a tournament that requires international travel booked months ahead; FIFA's roughly 30% cut of its own resale, he says, is "outrageous." You cannot algorithmically surge-price a trip people have to plan around flights and visas.

The format multiplies the problem. The first 48-team, 104-match World Cup, spread across three countries, means far more low-stakes early games, more travel, and more seats to fill — the group stage alone runs 72 matches before the knockout rounds even begin.

Where This Lands

This could be naked greed: a promised $21 seat that became $380, an algorithm that emptied stadiums, and a governing body scalping its own event. But FIFA may genuinely see a normal premium market that's already self-correcting. And the structural critics see something harder to fix: a tournament engineered for scale and revenue, sold with a tool built for a different kind of event. What is not in dispute is that 508 million people wanted in. We'll just have to wait and see if the stadiums actually fill at the event.

Sources