Florian Ederer has a message for soccer fans holding out for cheap last-minute tickets to see Canada’s World Cup opener against Bosnia: Quit dreaming.
The Boston University economist has been analyzing the ticket market for global soccer’s biggest showcase, and while prices have been falling for some games, ones with the host nations — Canada, the U.S. and Mexico — are still in high demand, said Ederer.
“I’d urge Canadian fans not to delude themselves. There might be a lucky few, but all the host nation games will be sold out,” said Ederer.
On social media sites where Canadian soccer fans congregate, some have been hoping that prices will fall for the Bosnia game, Canada’s only World Cup appearance in Toronto.
“I’ll buy at $200,” said reddit user Thejonasgrumby in a thread discussing opening game prices.
“I would happily drive from Ottawa for the game but I can’t risk all that planning and then not have the tickets come down to a reasonable price,” wrote user WintAndKidd.
In fact, according to The Great Reviewer, which analyzes date from FIFA’s resale site Marketplace, the cheapest available tickets to see Canada-Bosnia have risen by almost five per cent over the last week, to $1,260.
With FIFA having sold tickets in several stages, world soccer’s governing body has been doing its best to maximize ticket revenue by trying to make every game seem like a hot ticket, Ederer said.
“It’s in line with their supply management strategy to manufacture scarcity. They want to create that illusion,” said Ederer.
For in-demand games, FIFA has also been accused of removing some tickets from sale, then relisting them at higher face value prices. Because they’re the original seller, they’ve been accused of using the tactic as an end-run around Ontario’s new anti-scalping bylaw, which bars tickets from being resold for more than their face value.
“That’s something that FIFA has been doing everywhere. Are they doing it more for the Toronto games? I don’t think so, so it’s hard to say they’re doing it to get around the law. They’re trying to maximize revenue everywhere they can,” said Ederer.
While some fans try to outsmart FIFA — or concert ticket sellers — by assuming there will always be another batch of tickets opening up, it often doesn’t work, Ederer said. That’s because there will always be some fans eager to play it safe.
“There’s been this conjecture that prices are going to come down much earlier, because everybody knows the tickets will have to be sold at some point. Now it’s a waiting game,” said Ederer. “But does this happen in practice? The answer is no. Because people don’t want to gamble and miss out.”
For some lower demand matches in the U.S., Ederer suspects FIFA has been putting large blocks of tickets for sale below their face value, with “secondary market” resellers such as StubHub or SeatGeek.
While FIFA also has its own resale site called “Marketplace,” it would open itself up to more bad publicity — and potential litigation — if it sold them for below face value on a site it controls, Ederer said.
Still, Toronto doesn’t have a surplus of high-demand games, Ederer added. So if you wanted to go see Ghana vs. Panama or Senegal vs. Iraq, you might be able to scoop up some cheaper tickets on non-FIFA sites like StubHub or SeatGeek, Ederer said.
If there are any FIFA-controlled tickets which are still available just before Canada’s opener, Ederer said, they’d likely be handed out to a charity, or given to youth soccer clubs.
“I’d be surprised if there’s more than a handful, but they’re not going to sell anything at a deep discount. People understand the idea of kids or charities getting free tickets. But they’d be pretty pissed off if Joe Blow soccer fan got something for $100 if they’d paid $3,000. It would just be too much bad publicity for FIFA to sell them at the last minute,” Ederer said.
