What a smashing game on Friday, eh? The USA looks like it finally knows how to play football. Sorry, ‘soccer’. The co-hosts spanked Paraguay 4-1 in Los Angeles, the first time the home team had played a World Cup game on American soil in 32 years.
It’s the sort of fixture that should have sold out in an afternoon. It did not. Days before kickoff Fifa still had around 350 tickets unsold on its own website, with another 2,500 floating on resale, some below face value.
But if that sounds like a failure, that’s because you don’t understand pricing. (You’re a marketer after all – why would you?)
You might think a sell out is the signal pricing success. But, of course, it’s quite the opposite. Selling out fast usually signals that you – like most companies that don’t understand pricing – have underpriced your offer and favoured volume over value. Would you rather sell out a 70,000 seat stadium at $50 a seat? Or price your seats at $500 and have 3000 left at kick-off? Do the math.
My hypothetical prices are, of course, way off. The cheapest seat on Friday night was $1,120. There were exactly two of those. Above that the ladder climbed through $1,645, $2,330, $2,735 and $4,105. The most expensive ordinary ticket to a group game at the Fifa 2026 World Cup costs more than the dearest seat at the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar.
When the United States last hosted, in 1994, tickets started at $25 – about $55 in today’s money. That’s a twentieth of what supporters were being asked to pay on Friday.
Always remember: There is a difference between a price and pricing – the price being charged and the way that price was arrived at and communicated.
Marketers might be scratching their heads at that one too. But stay with me…
