USA TODAY Network
Last month, NJ Transit found itself facing plenty of backlash after unveiling the price that fans will have to pay if they want to take a train to and from a World Cup game at MetLife Stadium. The agency recently announced its decision to reduce the astronomical fare, but the new one is anything but a bargain.
We’re around a month away from the start of this year’s World Cup, and it’s become abundantly clear that the vast majority of people who want to experience one of those games in person will be forced to fork over a significant amount of money for the privilege of doing so.
FIFA has once again managed to draw the ire of soccer fans due to the prices it has set for tickets to the matches that will be held in the United States, Canada, and Mexico between June 11th and July 19th, and President Gianni Infantino recently pushed some patently incorrect claims in a weak attempt to justify them.
There’s a chance the secondary market ends up softening as the games get closer (data concerning hotel bookings suggests demand may not be as high as organizers were hoping), but that is not the only cost attendees will have to stomach.
The price of transportation to and from certain stadiums has also become a hot topic of conversation, and no venue has sparked a fiercer discourse than the one that is known for a different type of football as the home of the Giants and the Jets.
NJ Transit got people very riled up by announcing it would charge $150 for train tickets, and fans who will be relying on that particular form of transportation probably won’t be over the moon about the new “reduced” price.
NJ Transit is still charging over $100 for train tickets to World Cup games after cutting the price by 30%
Tickets for an NJ Transit train between MetLife Stadium (which will be known as “New York New Jersey Stadium” during the World Cup) and Penn Station in New York City will typically run you $12.90 each way. However, last month, a report surfaced that asserted the public transportation agency was planning on hiking that number by a significant amount for the World Cup.
That turned out to be the case and then some, as officials announced the cost of a round-trip ticket would be $150. That decision stemmed from the fact that the state did not want to burden taxpayers with the approximately $48 million cost of operating extra trains for the World Cup, but it understandably caused some sticker-shock to the point where FIFA voiced its displeasure with the development.
According to The Athletic, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill instructed NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri to figure out some sort of compromise, and the latter credited unspecified “sponsors and other sources” who swooped in and helped to lower the cost of the tickets to…$105 a pop.
That may be a 30% decrease, but it’s still a pretty laughable sum for an approximately 18-mile journey that takes less than an hour each way. NJ Transit added that it is “continuing to seek additional private funding assistance to cut the price further,” so we’ll have to see what that number ends up being when the tickets (which must be purchased ahead of time) go on sale on May 13th.