Misc Sports Thread

[Arcc]

The reasons aren’t hard to find. Anti-American sentiment. Fear of border crossings. The Iran war driving up oil prices and airfares. And tickets priced into the stratosphere, with finals seats hitting $10,990 a pop.

Logic says one of these holds much more weight than the others. I wonder which one it could be...

 

[YetAnotherRDUGuy]

I just did some searching on World Cup sales and found a LOT of griping about FIFA charging way higher ticket prices for this one, despite having more games and more supply due to expanding from 32 to 48 teams.

I found very little about geopolitics surprisingly. I’m sure it doesn’t help, but it doesn’t look like it’s the main factor.

 

[chase5ash]

I just did some searching on World Cup sales and found a LOT of griping about FIFA charging way higher ticket prices for this one, despite having more games and more supply due to expanding from 32 to 48 teams.

I found very little about geopolitics surprisingly. I’m sure it doesn’t help, but it doesn’t look like it’s the main factor.

I was able to get a couple of tickets at face value after jumping through round after round of convoluted lotteries and queues, and that still ran me close to a thousand dollars.

Tickets on the official FIFA resale market are listed for upwards of 10x face value in some cases and FIFA are pocketing 15% from both the buyer and seller. It’s a disgrace.

 

[SD]

I just did some searching on World Cup sales and found a LOT of griping about FIFA charging way higher ticket prices for this one, despite having more games and more supply due to expanding from 32 to 48 teams.

I found very little about geopolitics surprisingly. I’m sure it doesn’t help, but it doesn’t look like it’s the main factor.

Maybe it's just on a larger scale soccer isn't that popular in this country

 

[YetAnotherRDUGuy]

Maybe it's just on a larger scale soccer isn't that popular in this country

That's true and I hear ya, but look at the 94 World Cup hosted here. That one was expanded too and still sold out everything very quickly. A lot of people were shocked at the time. Soccer was pretty much dead in this country till then.

 

[SD]

That's true and I hear ya, but look at the 94 World Cup hosted here. That one was expanded too and still sold out everything very quickly. A lot of people were shocked at the time. Soccer was pretty much dead in this country till then.

Are you a soccer fan? Id really like to understand the allure of it.

 

[YetAnotherRDUGuy]

Are you a soccer fan? Id really like to understand the allure of it.

I’m a casual fan admittedly. But always watch the World Cup.

Turning point for me (I'll try to keep the story short). Went on a Europe Trip after HS graduation. Spent 3 nights in Paris. The 1st night happened to be the 98 World Cup final in Paris, which had the host nation France upset Brazil. Our group was staying in the suburbs and walked to a local stadium (equivalent to a HS football stadium here I imagine) during the game. It was filled with locals watching on a giant projected screen. Crazy party atmosphere. I don’t remember anything about the game except the outcome, but just the fans getting louder and louder each minute and shooting flares in the air and hugging each other and drinking. Very rowdy. Our chaperone got nervous and we left about 2 minutes before the end, but consider myeself very lucky to have experienced it.

And random memory from 98--US had some buzz and people thought they might get to the knockout round again like 94, but lost to Iran the 1st game. That sucked.