👋 World Cup Wednesday but on a Thursday!

It’s been a busy month and we’re back in your inbox with the monthly recap of World Cup content!

Don’t forget to check the core website, theworldcupguide.com for info on how tickets worked previously, costs of attending previous World Cups and more!

This edition covers:

Disclaimer: long-winded…

Say it ain’t so…dynamic pricing is likely to hit the World Cup market for 2026. It’s been rumored previously but also the channels that picked up on this rumor were making conflicting statements earlier. Sadly, the above link is from the trusted source of The Athletic.

Dynamic pricing would be a significant shift in strategy for ticket pricing from FIFA. Everyone hates change and not all change is bad but it is difficult to imagine how this plan is meant for the masses and not to optimize the likelihood of FIFA hitting their $13B revenue target for the cycle (a 71% increase from 2019 to 2022). Some of my immediate thoughts include:

Related to “resale” of World Cup tickets, Sky News posted a short video about its exchange with FIFA regarding unofficial resale sites for 2026 (focusing on Vivid Seats and also featuring a story about Chelsea). It’s a strong message from FIFA but it is unclear how dynamic pricing would work with an official resale platform outside of giving into the scalping culture of at least the US. After all, the FIFA Collectible Marketplace and is full of scalpers reselling the “Right to Buy” options.

Unfamiliar with the concept of Dynamic Pricing? Melanie Anzidei discusses it more.

And of course, if you are reading this and thinking, “what’s up with Hospitality Tickets again”? Head over to On Location’s (FIFA’s official hospitality vendor) ticketing site.

Wondering how all this compares to previous pricing strategy for World Cups? Take a glance at the research I did (with sources) on World Cup ticket pricing from 1994 to 2022, including inflation at the time of publication.

In what can potentially be good news (though, admittedly under a vastly different circumstance and tournament) for those fearing the worst about dynamic pricing for 2026, FIFA has slashed 2025 Club World Cup ticket prices amid weak demand in the U.S. Some group stage seats dropped under $30 in mid-May. Even semi-final tickets are down to ~$300.

Per sources, FIFA blames slow uptake on the American “last-minute buying” culture, but thousands of seats remain unsold for some matches, especially for less prominent matchups. Surprisingly, FIFA is even in conversations with teams regarding partial refunds for fans who purchased higher priced tickets in their distribution network (i.e. not all fans).

UPDATE (yes, I am making an update before publishing) - FIFA reportedly slashed prices again for the opening match in Miami between Inter Miami and Egypt’s Al-Ahly. Some suggested that as of 04 June, only 1/3 of the tickets have been sold. The initial selling price for cheapest seat was $349 (what!?) and now it is down to $55. Honestly, it’s a great match between Messi’s Inter and Africa’s legendary club Al-Ahly and one I’d be interested in attending. I personally wouldn’t spend $55 though, especially for the last row behind the goals and I’m clearly obsessed with international tournaments.

This article from The Athletic’s Adam Crafton discusses this phenomenon of potentially empty stadiums at length and even mentions how FIFA donated 30K tickets to Los Angeles first responders who fought the recent fires that devastated areas earlier this year.

My honest take here is the mega-clubs will sell out stadiums and the knockout rounds will add some excitement and see larger crowds. Americans are already doling out over $100 to see European giants play pre-season matches so it isn’t a stretch to assume the same can be expected for this tournament that has large monetary incentives.

FIFA and Host Cities were making splashes in this past month about signing up to enter the application pool for 2026 Volunteer Candidates. In a previous newsletter edition, I used ✅ and hyperlinks in a table to indicate which host cities had Volunteer links. I went ahead and updated that table below.

In general though, you can always go to FIFA’s main signup page as well.

Additionally, FIFA has some brilliant, short videos and descriptions of the various Volunteer roles on this site.

Random Comment: I still find it weird that Mexico’s City page is a Facebook page.

It looks like you’ll want to sign up by August 2025 according to this timeline for Volunteers on the Kansas City site:

As 2026 Qualifying approaches the June international window, we know that 7 of the 48 teams have already qualified. During this window there are 14 teams (!) that have a possibility to secure a spot at 2026 (South Korea, Iraq, Australia, Paraguay, Jordan, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Oman).

This is qualifying as it stands going into the window:

It’s only 2 years away but we are just now learning about the 8 host cities for the 2027 tournament in Brazil.

The host cities may rekindle some fond memories for fans that visited Brazil in 2014. Here’s the full list of cities and stadiums for 2027:

🇧🇷 São Paulo / Arena Itaquera
🇧🇷 Rio de Janeiro / Estádio do Maracanã
🇧🇷 Brasília / Estádio Nacional
🇧🇷 Belo Horizonte / Estádio Mineirão
🇧🇷 Fortaleza / Arena Castelão
🇧🇷 Porto Alegre / Estádio Beira-Rio
🇧🇷 Recife / Arena de Pernambuco
🇧🇷 Salvador / Arena Fonte Nova

Additionally, FIFA President Infantino recently announced a new goal of $1B in revenue from the women’s tournament after $570M in 2023. The 2023 tournament broke even and it can easily make up a portion of this goal by raising ticket prices. It still blows my mind that I purchased my tickets to 2023’s Final between Spain & England for only $25 USD each.

Mexico officially confirms it is joining USA in the 2031 World Cup hosting rights. Canada hosted the tournament in 2015 and it isn’t part of the group (at least not yet) like in 2026.

It is also rumored that Costa Rica and Jamaica may join the honors, too.

Given that 2031 (and 2035) will expand to 48 teams, up 32 from 2023 & 2027, it will be interesting to see how many additional co-hosts join. This is quite a rapid expansion for the women’s tournament considering 24 teams played in the 2019 edition. In contrast, the men’s edition played 7 tournaments with 32 teams (starting in France 1998) before expanding to 48 in 2026.

In the same article from Adam Crafton of The Athletic above about the Club World Cup tickets, there’s also an interesting blurb about 2038 interests. Yes, we are talking about 2038 when 2026 / 2030 / 2034 have yet to happen. There’s interest from Oceania to host as New Zealand pitched the idea of trans-Pacific tournament. It’s really tough to wrap heads around this being remotely possible but one can ignore logic and imagine.

In the last month, there was a theme in questions submitted so I thought I’d quickly address those publicly. If there’s interest in doing this each month, you can hit respond directly from your inbox to send a message to submit a question. I’m summarizing the topics here:

😅 Thanks for reading - a very long edition. Was this useful? Horrible? Let me know.

Have a friend, loved one or colleague that you think would love to subscribe to this newsletter?

Always showing love to our OG’s with shouts to AI Language Tutor Languatalk and virtual personal card Businesscards.io!

Interested in being featured, exclusively and/or at the intro vs the bottom?

We are open to ideas on partnerships so definitely reply to this message or click here to send a message!