FIFA has drawn criticism for its World Cup ticket pricing, but for most viewers the tournament is experienced not through a four-figure seat in a stadium, but through a screen – making the optics of empty seats more than a stick with which to beat the governing body, and part of the television product itself. SVG Europe editor-at-large Callum McCarthy examines FIFA’s strategy.

FIFA has been getting some bad press of late. The latest news is that football’s global governing body has turned the World Cup into a commodity, for sale to the highest bidder.

Who knew?

Well, FIFA did try to warn people. Back in 2023, football’s global governing body published its revenue targets for the 2023-26 cycle and made no secret of its desire to earn over $3bn in revenue from matchday tickets and hospitality at the 2026 World Cup, a sixfold increase on what it hoped to earn from the World Cup in Qatar.

FIFA said its ticketing strategy and revenue targets for the 2026 World Cup “aligned with the commercial market scale and opportunity provided by the increased number of teams and matches at the FIFA World Cup 26”.

In other words, it was planning to earn a shedload of money from ticketing while it had the chance to do things the American way.

FIFA is employing a controversial form of dynamic pricing – a method of ticket pricing that dominates the US landscape. Its method is widely known as variable pricing, through which the governing body controls the flow of tickets and the prices they are offered for.

Unlike pure dynamic pricing, which does not restrict supply and operates algorithmically, FIFA is choosing when tickets are released and what they cost. That means prices can be kept high even close to kick-off, removing much of the hope that seats will become much cheaper on the day of the match.

The strategy is leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of just about everyone, including an appalled global media corps. However, for an event as popular as the World Cup, aggressive pricing often works for a promoter’s bank balance.

Overall, FIFA aimed to make around $9bn from the 2026 World Cup, with about $4bn from TV rights, $1.8bn from sponsorship and the remainder from matchday.

According to the latest from SportBusiness, Fifa will comfortably exceed its targets, having earned about $4.3bn from TV rights, almost 50% more than for the 2022 World Cup. It would be no surprise if it blew past its $3bn ticketing target, too.

In Qatar, FIFA expected to earn around $500m and ended up closer to $900m. Now, in the US, it is under intense scrutiny for charging four-figure dollar amounts for almost every available ticket.

So far, most stadiums have been close to full, suggesting its ticketing strategy is working as intended despite the significant criticism it has drawn.

The cheapest tickets for most group games on resale sites are available for over $1,000, while the cheapest overall are available for DR Congo vs. Uzbekistan, around $250 per ticket.

That game could attract the lowest attendance of the tournament, but that mantle currently belongs to the Group A game between South Korea and Czechia, unofficially at least.

FIFA’s official attendance counter stood at almost 45,000, which was very close to a full house. However, large blocks of the stadium appeared to be filled with fans that had come dressed as seats.

Suspicions were raised that the official attendance number could be very different to the actual number of fans in the stadium, which FIFA did a bad job of assuaging.

It said: “Official attendance figures reflect the number of tickets scanned and spectators present within the stadium footprint, rather than visual assessments of seating occupancy at any given moment during the match.”

“Please note that, during last night’s match in Guadalajara, several ticketed fans could be seen standing in concourses rather than staying in their assigned seats throughout the match.”

Artificially high ticket prices were immediately blamed for the poor attendance in Guadalajara, probably with some merit. The lowest price available for a decent seat just before kick-off was around $400, multiples higher than equivalent group games in previous tournaments.

But putting FIFA’s loose definition of ‘several’ aside, the governing body has always been prepared to suffer through a few badly attended matches in favour of holding fast on its pricing strategy.

Empty seats are a recurring feature of World Cup group games and have long been part of FIFA’s game of supply and demand.

In fact, almost every single World Cup since the US-hosted tournament in 1994 has suffered from ticket pricing and attendance issues, particularly during the group stages.

Even the best-attended World Cup of all time had awkward group-stage gaps. A game between Nigeria and Bulgaria in 1994 barely reached 70% capacity at the Cotton Bowl, prompting the Los Angeles Times to wonder if $25 for the cheapest ticket was too much to ask.

In 2022, Qatar’s opener against Ecuador produced a visible thinning of the crowd after half-time, as unenthusiastic locals poured to the exits at half time.

For the 2018 tournament in Russia, group games in Yekaterinburg were noticeably less full than elsewhere, while criticism of the 2014 tournament in Brazil swirled around sparsely attended games throughout the group stages, as protests raged outside stadiums.

High ticket prices are not always to blame for low attendances, though. For the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, around 120,000 tickets were given away free to locals who could not afford to pay.

These giveaways, coupled with rafts of $15 tickets released late on to boost attendances, were still not enough to prevent Cameroon vs Japan and New Zealand vs Slovakia being played in half-empty stadiums. On several occasions, fans who had bought cheap tickets to multiple matches opted not to attend, such were the low stakes at play.

Of course, FIFA could have done more to ensure all of these games were better attended, namely ensuring giveaways and lower-priced tickets were available and advertised sooner. But while demand for the World Cup remains higher than for any other sporting festival, why would FIFA change?

According to its 2027-30 budget, approved by the FIFA Council in May, the governing body will aim to earn around $2.7bn in ticket sales over the cycle.

It is yet to formally allocate how much of that will come from the 2030 World Cup hosted across Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Spain, Portugal and Morocco, but one suspects that FIFA variable pricing strategy will be back for another tournament.

Ticket prices won’t be as eye-watering in 2030, mostly because the host countries are very different markets to the US. Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay all have lower average incomes, different political demands and different expectations around local access. Regardless, FIFA will still push prices as far as it believes demand will allow.

The backlash to that policy came too late for 2026, but if media and fans want to fight the rising cost of attending a World Cup, they will have to start in August 2026, not when the 2030 ticket portal opens.

Because by the time fans are staring at four-figure prices and media outlets write about empty seats on television, FIFA will be busy earning billions for the game, for the world, and for its bank balance, just like it told everyone it would.