[alexose]

Ticketmaster obviously sucks, and their monopolistic business practices deserve a close look by regulators.

But the core of it is that an unregulated ticket market actually supports these prices. Fans keep showing that they're willing to dig deep and outbid each other to attend these events in person. Ticketmaster realizes this, and have set up a business model that extracts accordingly.

I think this is where us Americans get turned around. We tend to believe that it’s fair to charge the full market value for a thing, but we also have a sense that cultural experiences are "meant" to be shared equitably. But until we actually put a value on the latter, we're only ever going to have the former.

[akudha]

Looking at the world cup ticket prices gives me a mini heart attack. I don't know who is responsible for such high prices (maybe a combination of FIFA and Ticketmaster?), but goddamn these prices are insane. It is going to price out most people. Either that, or people are going to get into debt, just to see a couple of matches to see their favorite teams play.

[alphager]

There are very limited seats (a few teens of thousands). Free market logic dictates that the 100000 richest fans get the tickets.

If you don't like it, you are not a true believer in a free market. There's a reason social democrat countries heavily subsidize culture.

[loloquwowndueo]

Stadiums are still going to be full, that’s why it will keep happening.

People voting with their wallets goes both ways.

[fakedang]

> "Every match is already sold out," Fifa president Gianni Infantino said in February. "We keep some tickets back for some last-minute sales, of course, but every match is sold out."

> Like most things about this World Cup, the reality appears to be different.

> Fifa should not have a problem selling out the games featuring the marquee teams - Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany and Spain, to name a few.

> We should be able to say the same about the host nations, but Fifa has priced these games so highly that only two of the nine matches featuring Canada, Mexico or the United States are officially sold out.

> on Saturday there were close to 74,000 tickets available across 86 of the 104 matches.

[loloquwowndueo]

74k tickets across all 86 matches? That’s less than 1k tickets per match. Azteca Stadium in Mexico has 87k capacity - 1k unsold tickets is nothing.

[kevin_thibedeau]

The real crime is that FIFA is allowed to interfere with mass transit schedules for venues already equipped to handle large events. Non-spectators are being unfairly disenfranchised if they need to use public services they, and not FIFA, are paying for with taxes.

[conradfr]

It's not clear they will be. Or maybe not with the fans that wanted to see their teams.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/ckgpv7v4p9lo

[martythemaniak]

There's a simple answer actually, FIFA decided to cash out and their objective is now to get the maximum amount of money out of attendees, even becoming their own scalper.

This video is a good overview: https://youtu.be/ocxngraLbV0?si=XzeJf3Chfsbr_BeD

[watwut]

It is FIFA, no question there. And they don't care about pricing out most of people out of world cup at all. Just about only thing that organization cares about are money right now. Simultaneously, it is an organization that turned corruption and kowtowing to corrupt regimes into a genuine proud art form.

[fakedang]

FIFA has switched to "variable pricing" under Infantino. Ticketmaster's just riding his coattails.

> It is going to price out most people.

Pretty much. I guess FIFA just figured they'd make more money milking the already rich. They must've seen the Superbowl finals performance and figured that broligarchs will pay those rates.

[ghaff]

Yes. A lot of people have this sense that you should be able to attend the World Cup, a Taylor Swift concert, or the Indianapolis 500 without taking out a second mortgage. But there are only so many seats. You can have a lottery which is actually fairly common for many, especially government, permits but doesn't actually increase the number of slots. Whether luck or money is the better way to allocate a scarce resource presumably depends on your personal philosophy and the goals of the organization doing the allocating.