Not even the World Cup final or the Champions League final can compare with the price that will have to be paid by those who want to see the final of the first Club World Cup on July 13 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. And that’s not even knowing the teams yet.
Tickets for the match are already in short supply, butthe cheapest ones are already up to 600 eurosand the grandstand tickets, all sold out, require going to the official resale market, where they circulate between6,000 and 8,000 euros. These are historic prices for a match when the2022 World Cup final in Qatarwas between 207 and 1600 euros (the opening match was between 55 and 620) and the most expensiveChampions League final, which will be this year in Munich, is priced at 70 euros for the cheapest, and 960 for the most expensive. The Champions League quarter-final second leg between Madrid and Arsenal ranges from 125 to 450, always talking about normal tickets, of course. The VIP world is another matter.
Victoria Beckham looks emotionless as David Beckham loses it celebrating Lionel Messi’s goal
East Rutherford’s Metlife Stadium is not small, with a capacity of around 82,500, but the thing is who plays and who pays, because the pre-season match between Real Madrid and Barcelona at the New York Coliseum was charged at 200 and 4,000 being a summer match. They know who is going, of course. And sport in the US is very, very expensive to follow live.
A stadium that will host major events such as concerts by Shakira or Beyonce, just before the arrival of this soccer wave, but there things go from 50 to 450 euros. So nothing like football.It doesn’t even reach the level of a local derby between the NFL’s Jets and Giants, the mother sport in the US, like a Madrid-Atleti with an oval ball. They share a stadium, Metlife, and are the 4th and 7th most valuable franchises in the NFL. They only see each other every four years because of the special schedule of this competition, but nothing, the cheapest tickets could be had for about 200 euros in their last duel in October 2023. They are doing badly in their respective conferences and not even the locals are encouraged, there is no way to get them excited… but with soccer it is different.
The most expensive of all time
The new competition, organised by FIFA between June and July, could be the most expensive of all time. Already from the preliminary phase, thingsare serious in the USA with the growth of soccer, with prices at the level of major NBA, NHL or NFL games.The presence of Lionel Messi, also in the championship with Inter Miami, as well as the proximity to Brazil and Argentina,ensures huge crowds in almost every match.And the price is skyrocketing. The opening match on June 14 with Argentina’s No.10 in Miami starts at 200 euros and goes up to 1,000 euros.
Just look at the prices for Real Madrid’s three matches, for example: against Al Hilal on June 18 (Miami Hard Rock) everything is sold out, and in the official resale the price starts at 450 euros for the cheapest if two people go, if one goes 650
Against Pachuca at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, prices range from 125 to 500 euros, and the last one against Salzburg in Philadelphia, PALincoln Financial Field between 150 or 175.
Atletico Madrid is not far behind:Against PSGthere are still 90 euros left on June 15 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Then everything is inflated against the Seattle Sounders on the 19th at WALumen Field Seattle (between 130 and 550) to finish again in Pasadena against Botafogo finally with home prices: 50 euros.
It’s going unnoticed in Europe, because the Champions League can do everything among the greats. And the leagues, and the cups… but in South America, Boca Juniors sold out its allocated quota for its first three matches in the blink of an eye. This speaks of the interest in the competition… and the money that is in the United States, of course.
Other crazy prices
The madness of the final is only comparable to the mega-matches in the USA. The Super Bowl, the most watched sporting spectacle on the planet, starts at 4,000 euros and usually ends, until resale works, at 15,000. That front row of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, in the regular season, where Jack Nicholson popularized those seats at the coach’s eye level, dances between $10,000 and $18,000.
The Boston Celtics have the cheapest ticket for the first game of the NBA Finals, which they do not know if they will reach, at 1,200 euros in the Garden, and the New York Knicks the same but at 2,600 in Madison Square Garden. The Lakers do not yet have prices at the Staples Center and with Doncic things would go up, as he sold the most expensive of the season on the day of his debut. All of them hover around 20,000 euros in those courtside seats for celebrities.
The New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers faced each other in 2024 in the most eagerly awaited MLB (baseball) final (a Real Madrid-Barcelona with wooden bats), and in the decisive 4-1 game for the Los Angeles team at Yankee Stadium in New York, the starting price was 570 euros standing, 1,000 euros for the cheapest seats and up to 1,500 euros on average. If there had been a sixth game at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, the start would have been from 1,100 euros but there was not.
In the NHL (Hockey), between 1,000 and 8,000 was paid for the seventh and final game between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers in last year’s final. But the madness was experienced a few days ago at the home of the New York Islanders when Aleksandr Ovechkin, the Russian winger of the Capitals, broke the historic goal-scoring record of legend Wayne Gretzky and left the mark, for the moment, at 895 goals. The moment had the value of “I was there” and the price skyrocketed to between $900 and $6,000. And the “I was there” in the first Club World Cup final is also a lure, especially if a U.S. team can get there.
