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The United States Men’s National Team should be the hottest ticket of the 2026 World Cup. As a co-host nation alongside Canada and Mexico, the USA squad are set to play all 3 of their Group Stage matches on home soil with 2 of the 3 matches, including their opener, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
Despite opening up their 2026 World Cup in Los Angeles, FIFA is reportedly struggling to sell tickets to the match due to their astronomical pricing as soccer fans are pushing back with their wallets by opting not to attend.
FIFA Struggles To Sell Team USA World Cup Opener Tickets
The USMNT opens their Group D 2026 World Cup play on June 12th against Paraguay in SoFi Stadium. Los Angeles is the second largest city in America behind NYC and it has a massive soccer fan base. Selling tickets to a USMNT World Cup match should be no problem at all. Alas, FIFA appears to have misjudged the fans’ interest.
According to a report from Adam Crafton and Henry Bushnell at The Athletic, FIFA has only been able to sell 40,934 tickets to the USMNT opening match against Paraguay on June 12th.
41K tickets might be a lot except that SoFi Stadium has a listed capacity of 69,650 for the World Cup, meaning there are 28,716 unsold tickets according to the documents reviewed by The Athletic. The answer to ‘why is this happening?’ is easy: money.
When tickets went on sale to the USMNT’s home opener they were listed at $2,730 for Category 1 and $1,940 for Category 2. According to the report, tickets listed at those prices are still abundantly available which is “a clear indication that fans have been deterred by the price tag.”
Tickets to USMNT matches remain priced at $2,730, $1,940 and $1,120 for the USMNT vs Paraguay match, a STEEP price to pay for any sports fan. This story is nothing new though… We’ve been talking about it for weeks!
What happens next?
A few scenarios could play out here. FIFA is obviously well aware that having 20K+ vacant seats at SoFi Stadium for the host team’s opening match would be a horrible look on the international stage. So they could be waiting until closer to go-time in order to drop the prices and sell tickets. The last thing they want is the entire world to see all of those empty seats all because they opted to charge thousands of dollars.
Another scenario is FIFA could be betting on Los Angeles, and California in general, having such a preponderance of wealth that the tickets will sell as we get closer to match day. Plenty of fans never plan ahead and hop online the week of an event to try and purchase tickets. FIFA might be banking on that being the case here with wealthy fans snatching up the vacant seats as the World Cup hype builds.
The other scenario is the unsold tickets will go to corporate sponsors and vendors. It’s not an apples to apples comparison, but less than 25% of tickets to the Super Bowl each year are made available to the public with the rest going to sponsors, vendors, VIPs, and friends and family. That could very likely be the scenario we see play out in SoFi Stadium if American soccer fans continue to push back with their wallets.