Ticket Prices Surge as World Cup 2026 Becomes FIFA’s Most Profitable Tournament Ever

"This is the greatest event humanity has ever seen," FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in April, without a trace of modesty, referring to the 2026 World Cup. Whether he is right or not, for the International Federation of Association Football this is undoubtedly the most profitable event in its history.

According to the organization’s estimates, its four-year revenue cycle since the last World Cup is expected to break records and reach $13 billion, of which nearly $9 billion will come directly from the tournament itself, and the rest from the qualifying stages. The big money comes mainly from ticket sales, luxury hospitality packages, broadcast rights and sponsorships. To understand the scale of the precedent, the Paris Olympics held two years ago generated less than half that amount, and compared with the last World Cup held in Qatar, the current figure is about 70% higher.

This World Cup is unusual not only in the numbers on the check, but also in its scope. For the first time, 48 national teams will take part, instead of 32, and the number of matches will grow from 64 to 104, spread across three different countries, the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Ticket prices have soared fivefold

FIFA’s high profitability does not come out of nowhere. One of its main revenue sources is ticket prices, which have climbed to astonishing sums. For example, ticket prices sold for the final to be held in New Jersey have reached as much as $11,000 each. That is five times the price of the previous final in Qatar.

In addition, FIFA has developed a platform for resale of second-hand tickets, with a 15% commission from both the buyer and the seller. In simple terms, if a ticket sells for $1,000 between two private parties, FIFA takes $300. On top of that, the number of matches itself has grown significantly. Total revenue from tickets and related services is expected to reach about $3 billion, three times more than in Qatar. Broadcast rights revenue is expected to reach $4 billion, and sponsorships are expected to generate about $1.8 billion. Among the sponsors, Saudi oil company Aramco stands out.

The big question, where does the money go?

FIFA is ostensibly supposed to be a nonprofit organization, and one of the central questions is where all these billions are going. Revenue from the World Cup is intended to finance FIFA’s ongoing operations around the world over the next four years. Some of the money will be used to replenish the organization’s cash reserves, which have shrunk since the Qatar tournament from $3.9 billion to $2.7 billion at the end of 2025. Since FIFA is a nonprofit organization, its budget is structured so that almost all revenue is reinvested, with the aim of ending the current four-year cycle with only a symbolic surplus of $100 million.

Still, people around the world are asking where the large sums will go and who will profit along the way.

The betting network behind the matches

Just two days before the World Cup matches open on June 11, the volume of betting in prediction markets on the games crossed the $2 billion mark. The bet attracting the most demand is the question of who will win the World Cup this year. On Polymarket, Spain and France are at the top of the betting table, each with about a 16% chance of winning the tournament, with total betting volume standing at $1.8 billion.

According to analysts, this is a test case for the markets, in a field where traditional sites have long dominated, and at a time when regulators around the world are debating whether prediction markets are legitimate trading. Prediction markets have grown significantly as a venue for sports betting since Polymarket launched in 2020, and the unusual $1.8 billion trading volume on the identity of the World Cup winner is among the largest on the platform for a sports event.

Israel is preparing too

In Israel, most World Cup betting takes place through Toto’s Winner games. Unlike betting in prediction markets, where the winnings are determined by the amount wagered, Toto announced that the guaranteed first prize for a participant who correctly predicts the highest number of matches is 250,000 shekels. In addition, Toto expects revenue of 623 million shekels from betting on the World Cup, in part because the tournament is expected to feature 104 matches and span many days.

The amount allocated to producing this World Cup is estimated at nearly $4 billion. A similar sum is earmarked for "development and education" around the world. But the money is divided equally among the organization’s 211 member associations, drawing further criticism. How can a country with a billion people receive the same budget as a country with one or two million? The claim is that alongside the inequality, this is an attempt to win political support within the organization, since FIFA’s electoral system is based on equal influence regardless of a country’s size.

High revenues and heavy costs

But that money does not trickle down to the cities hosting the matches. For them, and for governments, there are tourism revenues but also heavy expenses such as security and public transportation costs. The host cities signed contracts committing them to provide FIFA with a broad range of services, facilities and infrastructure.

According to officials familiar with hosting budgets who spoke with The New York Times, each city is expected to spend more than $100 million to meet the tournament’s requirements. Many cities are determined to balance these budgets, and to try to help them, FIFA created a program allowing cities to recruit local sponsors.

The problem is that FIFA has not given the cities many assets to sell to sponsors, and it also forbids them from signing agreements with companies in industries where it already has official sponsors of its own. As a result, fast-food companies, beverage makers, sports brands, car manufacturers, airlines and many other industries are unavailable to the cities for local sponsorship fundraising.

Some cities benefit from access to federal or state public funding, but others struggle much more. The U.S. federal government allocated a total of $625 million to the 11 host cities for security at the games, but even that money did not ease the budget pressures. In some cases, cities have cut plans to build fan zones and public festivals, mainly because these are especially expensive initiatives.

In New Jersey, for example, they found a unique solution. The World Cup final will be held there at MetLife Stadium, and the local rail company, NJ Transit, is offering special rides to the stadium at an exorbitant price of $98. By comparison, a regular ride costs about $13.

FIFA says the investment pays off

For its part, FIFA argues that the investment is worthwhile for the cities, because the tournament attracts tourists, brings in revenue and gives them unprecedented global exposure. That is true for relatively smaller cities. In Kansas City, for example, host committee CEO Pam Kramer told The Times that there is a "collective and unified confidence" that the World Cup could change how people around the world see the city.

"There is a shared feeling that this event could be transformative in terms of how people think about Kansas City," Kramer said, "and also in terms of the confidence we have in ourselves."

Large cities, by contrast, do not need FIFA’s spotlight. Many economists question the grand forecasts that the 2026 World Cup will generate billions of dollars in "economic impact." In their view, despite the international exposure and the temporary increase in tourism, it is very difficult to prove that host cities actually derive significant, long-term economic profit from the event itself.

Dr. Amnon Shraiber, from the Department of Economics at Bar-Ilan University, believes that "the tournament’s business model has become distinctly asymmetrical: the international organization, FIFA, draws in the core revenues, from unprecedented broadcast rights, through giant sponsorships, to ticket sales and hospitality packages at very high prices. By contrast, the local authorities are left with the burden of financing security systems, road closures, transportation, logistics and stadium infrastructure adjustments."

According to him, "from an economic perspective, this dynamic resembles the ‘winner’s curse.’ When several cities compete for the right to host under conditions of uncertainty, the winner is sometimes the one that held the most optimistic and exaggerated forecasts about revenue, or the one that underestimated costs. The very act of winning the bid paradoxically indicates overcommitment, which ultimately leads to a loss in the overall balance. It is no coincidence that some cities also chose to walk away from the game, Chicago, for example, withdrew from the bid to host 2026 matches after, according to the then-mayor’s office, FIFA did not provide basic certainty about ‘key unknowns’ that could endanger the city and taxpayers."