The most expensive World Cup ever? (With Football Daily, part 3)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase the greatness of American world-class athletic competition as we celebrate our nation's 250th year.
The World Cup will also be an incredibly significant economic opportunity for countless American workers and businesses. It's expected to drive more than $30 billion, Johnny. I don't know about that. That sounds like a lot of money. Are you sure?

**Gianni Infantino** (0:26)
100 percent.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:27)
How much does the country get out of that?

**Gianni Infantino** (0:29)
$30 billion.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:30)
20 percent. Do we get like a percentage of the gross or anything?

**Gianni Infantino** (0:35)
That's for negotiation.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:37)
That's right. And it's going to create nearly 200 million.

**Anthony Zurcher** (0:40)
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That was, of course, US. President Donald Trump talking to Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA in the Oval Office last year, about the upcoming World Cup, which is almost here.

**Adam Fleming** (0:53)
And in this upcoming episode, we're going to be talking about money. How much does it cost to buy a ticket? Spoiler alert, a lot. Where does all that 30 billion come from and then go?
And a few other of the financial aspects of the 2026 World Cup. And you'll be hearing that in this third episode, which is a co-production, like the World Cup itself, between three BBC podcasts.

**Marianna Spring** (1:14)
Welcome to AmeriCast.

**Adam Fleming** (1:18)
AmeriCast.

**Marianna Spring** (1:19)
AmeriCast from BBC News.

**SPEAKER_6** (1:21)
It's going to be the world's largest sporting event ever hosted.

**Anthony Zurcher** (1:25)
But when the time is up, they'll have to go home.

**SPEAKER_7** (1:29)
FIFA is making $11 billion off of this World Cup.

**Gianni Infantino** (1:33)
If somebody buys a ticket for the final two minutes, I will personally bring him a hot dog and a Coke.

**SPEAKER_7** (1:38)
It is such a unifying event.

**Anthony Zurcher** (1:40)
It is also about winning.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:42)
I may put on shorts. I look extremely good in shorts. Enjoy the play.

**Adam Fleming** (1:52)
Hello, it's Adam from Newscast.

**Marianna Spring** (1:54)
And it is Marianna in the Americast Worldwide Headquarters, our current CoLab studio.

**Anthony Zurcher** (2:00)
And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of Americast here at the BBC Bureau in Washington, DC.

**John Murray** (2:05)
From the Football Daily, this is Jon Murray at my desk shortly before I head to Mexico in the World Cup.

**Faisal** (2:11)
And it's Faisal, economics editor here in the Newscast studio in London.

**Adam Fleming** (2:16)
And Faisal, you've got your tablet out in front of you. Is that because you're currently on the FIFA World Cup dynamic pricing website?

**Faisal** (2:22)
Well, I have been on the dynamic pricing website, is that there's a 23 minute wait right now to get up. Well, it may well be that once you get beyond that, this is something that I think anybody who has been sniffing around for tickets has witnessed. There has been a sort of dribble of tickets on at certain times of day onto the website, which I think many people are kind of jumping on there thinking.

**Adam Fleming** (2:51)
So it's a full time job keeping track of when the tickets even go on sale.

**Faisal** (2:54)
I mean, there are like Reddit forums, there are like AI built website trackers.

**Marianna Spring** (2:59)
Yeah, there's like a whole community of ticket chasers.

**Faisal** (3:02)
Trying to find, and the game is, you can get tickets for almost anything, actually, officially, but getting cheaper tickets, that's the game, and that is a very difficult task. And you use the phrase dynamic pricing, and it's something that's, well, it certainly wasn't around, it hasn't been ever been around for any World Cup. It's something that's come from the world of concerts. It became very famous with the Oasis gigs here in the UK a couple of years, well, last year.
And it's very common in American concerts.

**Adam Fleming** (3:38)
And what is the dynamism of the dynamic prices?

**Faisal** (3:41)
Well, it's that demand, when demand goes up, the price goes up. So you've seen that at each stage of the ticket offer, every time there's been an offer of tickets, it has adjusted.
Sometimes by the day, sometimes by the week, and you're seeing it to some degree as well right now in the last-minute phase. There's also, with some huge differences, should we go through some of the...

**Adam Fleming** (4:05)
Well yeah, let's just get your virtual blackboard out and chalk up some prices for us.

**Faisal** (4:10)
Well, and it's also evolved during the period of sales, the multiple periods of sales that we've had. So for a cat three ticket for the final, I mean obviously that's like a big showcase and it's going to be expensive, you'd expect, not quite sort of three grand starting price expensive and that was the price in October, but it's squeezed up and up and up, it's different and it's now up to nearly six grand. And category three in US dollars, and that's the lowest and like you may be right up in the gods for 5,785 hard earned dollars and that's for cat three. To give you some context, the last World Cup final in Qatar, 603, so a 10th of the price. There are lots of complaints about that price at the time. This is extraordinary. Now that's for cat three, for cat one, you're into five figures, no problem.