How to Avoid Kicking Yourself In the FIFA World Cup Ticket Frenzy

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is less than a year away, and soccer fans’ mad dash for tickets kicked off today as the first phase of ticket sales opened.

The tournament will be hosted in 16 cities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The U.S. last hosted the Men’s FIFA World Cup in 1994. Sky-high demand for tickets – and sky-high prices – is inevitable, and it’s happening at a time when technology is profoundly changing the way tickets are sold, resold, distributed and managed.

University of Virginia Darden School of Business professor Pnina Feldman is an expert on how digital technology affects operations strategy, pricing and consumer engagement, including ticket markets. The Darden Report caught up with her to learn more about the economics of the 2026 World Cup ticket market, and tips for fans hoping to score seats.

Darden professor Pnina Feldman’s research focuses on how digital technologies affects operations strategy.

What should fans expect as demand begins to outpace supply?

Based on historical patterns in major sporting events, fans should expect several key dynamics as World Cup ticket demand intensifies:

Price escalation is likely – even with face-value restrictions, secondary market prices typically surge 300-500% above retail for premium matches. The 2026 tournament’s expanded format will increase total inventory, but demand for marquee matchups will likely still far exceed supply, which will lead to price increases.

It is likely that geographic clustering effects will emerge, with tickets for matches in major metropolitan areas (New York, Los Angeles) commanding higher premiums than venues in smaller/less popular cities. In addition to the teams that are playing, location will become a determining factor affecting prices, too, as supply across venues is relatively fixed, but demand in large and touristic markets is higher.

FIFA is trying to curb scalping by requiring fans to apply for tickets and tying them to individual names. How effective are these kinds of measures in limiting reselling? What loopholes might still exist?

FIFA and other sellers’ attitudes towards reselling has shifted dramatically. With paper tickets, FIFA had no way to regulate secondary transactions – speculators could buy low and sell high, capturing value that FIFA wanted. But electronic ticketing changes everything. Now FIFA can track every transaction, require all resales go through their platform, and collect transaction fees on each transfer.

The transaction fee is the crucial innovation here. Without it, too many transfers happen in the secondary market, prices collapse, and FIFA’s revenue falls to the worst-case spot selling level. But when FIFA can charge transaction fees, they gain control over the resale volume and can actually achieve optimal revenue – better than any other selling mechanism. It’s not just about stopping scalpers; it’s about FIFA becoming able to extract maximum value from their inventory through controlled secondary market activity.

There are two main effects on scalping.

First, the obvious one – all the security measures, identification requirements, and electronic tracking make it much harder for traditional scalpers to operate. Though we’ve seen that sophisticated scalpers sometimes manage to find loopholes in these systems.

But second, and more fundamentally, as the technology becomes better and authorized reselling becomes more efficient, scalpers have less to gain from speculating, so they have less incentive to participate in the first place. Fully efficient markets have no value for speculation – if the official system can match buyers and sellers seamlessly with minimal friction, and the seller can set transaction fees optimally, there’s no profit opportunity left for independent speculators. The goal isn’t just to eliminate scalpers through enforcement, but to make scalping economically unviable through market efficiency.

Of course, markets are not completely efficient, and loopholes still remain. While the technology is promising, even strict ID-based systems can see resales outside official channels and even tech-based solutions can’t always fully stop scalping. For example, in 2023, Ticketmaster unsuccessfully tried verified fan presales and name-based digital tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, but bots managed to overwhelm the site and the secondary market exploded.

Identity verification is only as strong as enforcement at venue entry and the time gap between purchase and event makes enforcement challenging.

FIFA offers an official resale platform where you can list your tickets for other fans to purchase. What are the ethical and economic implications of these kinds of tightly restricted resale systems?

FIFA’s official resale platform represents a fundamental shift toward what my research identifies as “authorized reselling.” This creates several important dynamics:

• Economic implications: Our research demonstrates that authorized reselling, where sellers control and profit from resale transactions through technology and transaction fees, is optimal for sellers. FIFA’s approach allows them to capture value from secondary transactions while eliminating the destructive competition that uncontrolled reselling typically creates. The transaction fees they collect essentially allow them to control the number of transactions and to sell capacity at multiple price points rather than a single spot price, effectively charging different prices from customers who buy a ticket and use it compared to customers who buy a ticket and resell it.
• Optimal fee structure: The best approach would be demand-dependent transaction fees that vary by match popularity. If that’s too complex operationally, percentage-based fees significantly outperform fixed fees in capturing value across different demand scenarios.
  • Capacity implications: This controlled reselling model should actually incentivize FIFA to make more tickets available initially, since they can now profit from subsequent transfers rather than losing that value to scalpers.
  • Technology enables control: The key insight from our work is that electronic ticketing technology enables sellers to regulate reselling in ways that paper tickets could not. FIFA can now track every transaction, verify identities, and collect fees – transforming reselling from a threat into a revenue opportunity.

How do these new systems affect fans and consumers?

While authorized reselling improves market efficiency and reduces fraud risks compared to black markets, it does optimize for seller revenue rather than consumer surplus. Fans benefit from transaction security and legitimacy, but pay for that through FIFA’s ability to capture more value.

However, fans can benefit from authorized reselling in other ways beyond just security.

First, reselling allows welfare-enhancing trades – tickets flow from fans who discover they value them less to fans who value them more. The transaction fees create some friction, so not all welfare inducing trades occur, but some positive trades still happen.

Second, and this is key from our research, authorized reselling gives FIFA incentives to release more tickets initially. They’re no longer afraid of creating too much supply because they can profit from the resale activity. More tickets in the system is good for everyone.

The consumer impact really depends on the capacity situation. When there’s severe scarcity – like for a World Cup Final – consumers may be worse off compared to simple spot selling because FIFA captures more of the value. But when capacity is more reasonable, authorized reselling can actually expand total sales beyond what FIFA would offer otherwise, which benefits consumers overall.

Plus, there’s the option value – even fans who never resell benefit from knowing they could if their circumstances change. That flexibility has real economic value.

Do regulations around resale actually work, or do they push activity to less transparent platforms?

No – our research shows that when markets are efficient, speculators have no profitable role to play. Electronic ticketing enables what paper tickets never could – lower hassle costs for consumers, complete transaction control, identity verification and fee collection on every transaction. This doesn’t push activity underground; it makes unauthorized activity economically unprofitable and not viable.

For fans worried about getting priced out, what lessons can they learn from other Ticketmaster frenzies about when and how to buy?

Based on patterns from other high-demand events and the economics of authorized reselling, here’s some practical advice:

• Be flexible on matches: Knockout rounds will be hardest to access, but less-hyped group matches often trade below peak prices later.
• Have backup preferences: Flexibility on dates/locations dramatically improves odds.
• Apply early and widely: UEFA Euro 2020’s lottery system showed that fans who registered in multiple waves had far better odds.
• Monitor official channels first: FIFA’s controlled resale platform will likely offer better protection than third-party sites.
• Expect dynamic pricing: Even official resales may carry significant premiums for popular matches, and FIFA’s optimal strategy suggests fees will vary by demand.
• Verify everything: If deals seem too good to be true on unofficial platforms, they probably are.