The most expensive World Cup ever? (With Football Daily, part 3)

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. When you hear the phrase made in China, what do you think? I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. And today on our show, we look at the origins and evolution of made in China, because it actually wasn't inevitable. What we're talking about is the world's largest communist nation is at the beating heart of the capitalist system. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:38This will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase the greatness of American world-class athletic competition as we celebrate our nation's 250th year. The World Cup will also be an incredibly significant economic opportunity for countless American workers and businesses. It's expected to drive more than$30 billion, Johnny. I don't know about that. That sounds like a lot of money. No, that's true. Are you sure? 100%. How much does the country get out of that? 30 billion. 20%. Do we get like a percentage of the gross or anything? It's for negotiation. That's right. And it's going to create nearly 200.

1:18A once in a lifetime opportunity. That was, of course, U.S. President Donald Trump talking to Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, in the Oval Office last year about the upcoming World Cup, which is almost here. And in this upcoming episode, we're going to be talking about money. How much does it cost to buy a ticket? Spoiler alert, a lot. Where does all that 30 billion come from and then go? And a few other of the financial aspects of the 2026 World Cup. And you'll be hearing that in this third episode, which is a co-production like the World Cup itself between three BBC podcasts. Welcome to AmeriCast.

1:56AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. It's going to be the world's largest sporting event ever hosted. But when the time is up, they'll have to go home. FIFA is making$11 billion off of this World Cup. If somebody buys a ticket for the final$2 million, I would personally bring him a hot dog and a coke. It is such a unifying event. It is also about winning. I may put on shorts. I'll look extremely good in shorts. Enjoy the play.

2:31Hello, it's Adam from Newscast. And it's Mariana in the AmeriCast Worldwide Headquarters, our current CoLab studio. And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmeriCast here at the BBC Bureau in Washington, D.C. From the Football Daily, this is John Murray at my desk shortly before I head to Mexico and the World Cup. And it's Faisal, economics editor here in the Newscast studio in London. And Faisal, you've got your tablet out in front of you. Is that because you're currently on the FIFA World Cup dynamic pricing website? Well, I have been. And the dynamic on the dynamic pricing website is that there's a 23 minute wait right now.

3:08So not that dynamic at the moment. Well, it may well be that once you get beyond that, this is something that I think anybody who has been sniffing around for tickets has witnessed. There has been a sort of dribble of tickets on at certain times of day. onto the website which people i think many people are kind of jumping on there thinking so it's a full-time job keeping track of when the tickets even go on sale i mean there are like reddit forums there are like ai built yeah there's like a whole community of ticket chases trying to trying to find and and the game is you can get tickets for almost anything actually officially but getting cheaper tickets that's the game and that is a very difficult task and you use the phrase dynamic pricing and it's something that's well it certainly wasn't around it hasn't been ever been around for any world cup it's something that's come from the world of concerts it became very famous with the oasis gigs here in the uk a couple of years last year um and it's very common in in american uh concerts in big and what is the dynamism of the dynamic prices well it's the demand when demand goes up the price goes up so you've seen that at each stage of the ticket offer every time there's been an offer of tickets it has adjusted uh sometimes by the day sometimes by the week and you're seeing it to some degree as well right now in the last minute phase uh there's also with some you know huge difference should we go through some of the well yeah let's just get your virtual blackboard out and chalk up some prices for us well and it's also evolved during the period of sales the multiple periods of sales that we've had so for a for a cat three ticket for the final i mean obviously that's like a big showcase and it's it's going to be expensive you'd expect but not quite sort of three grand starting price expensive and that was the price in october but it's squeezed up and up and up it's different and it's it's now up to nearly six grand and category in dollars in us dollars and that's the lowest and and like you may be right up in the gods for 5 785 hard-earned dollars and that's for cap three to give you some context the last world Cup final in Qatar, 603.

5:33So a tenth of the price. You know, lots of complaints about that price at the time. This is extraordinary. Now, that's for a Cat 3. For a Cat 1, you're into five figures. No problem. That's the official price on the FIFA website. They also have a resale site where the people... Which is FIFA Run. Which is also FIFA Run, where if you got it for the cheaper prices in October, which weren't that cheap, by the way, still several thousand dollars free. I was going to say. $6 ,000 to$4 ,000. But they're going for even more now. Well, literally, they put no limit on it. They've let the market fly in terms of sales, and FIFA take a 15 % cut from buyer and from seller.

6:14So it's an extraordinary, you know, and I think if you take a step back, what's happened here, these tickets, if they had been put on sale, if they had been put on sale for hundreds rather than thousands, many of them would have ended up costing thousands on the secondary ticket websites sold not legally. And essentially the economic strategy here is to capture all of that gain inside the FIFA ecosystem. So you have the resale, you have the sale dynamically. I mean, you also have this other thing where there's some slightly like odd crypto website where you can collect car, virtual cards that double up that are currently being swapped for tickets.

6:55Right. That doesn't sound cheap to me. Actually, for some people, that has been the cheapest way of getting a ticket. Apart from that, there are a few hundred tickets, I think, for each game for fans who have got tickets through their football associations, the supporter tiers, where there are more typical reasonable prices where I think you can get some tickets for$60, for example. But these are pretty rare. And Anthony, FIFA's defence of these prices, I mean, it's a slightly loaded word to say it's a defence, but what they say about them is that actually going to live events in America, whether it's sports or concerts, is just way more expensive than it is anywhere else in the world.

7:36And that just reminds me of when I went to see Taylor Swift in Liverpool and the hotel was full of American families who'd come to Britain to see Taylor because it was so much cheaper than seeing her at their local football stadium in America. Yeah, it's expensive. America is an expensive country, particularly the big cities where all of these matches are going to be held. They're just expensive places to go to events, to park, to go to dinner, to stay in hotels. All of it just isn't cheap. And I have European friends who come over here and repeatedly remark about how expensive things are across the United States.

8:12Now Gianni Infantino said the$300 for a ticket for the lowest level World Cup tickets is about the same as, say, a college football sporting event here, which is very popular in the United States. And that's not exactly true. You can get tickets to college football games for much less than that. But the high profile tickets, the big games, the ones that sell out stadiums the way that the World Cup hopes to sell out stadiums, those are expensive. And you have to pay either retail or through these secondary markets a pretty penny to be able to enjoy them. And Anthony, is it true that some of the attorneys general of the states where matches are being held have decided to investigate FIFA?

8:52Yeah, there is currently ongoing investigations into FIFA, into how they struck out this dynamic pricing arrangements, the sorts of deals they have with local governments for things like transportation. And it'll be difficult for it to get to anywhere. The legal gears in the United States grind slowly. And here we are almost at the start of the World Cup. But I think what that shows, because attorneys general, they're usually political positions in the United States. They're elective offices and they stand before the people to go back to their jobs during election years. They sense public dissatisfaction.

9:34They sense the ability to take advantage politically of the criticisms of the World Cup and of FIFA. And that's why they're getting out ahead of this and bringing these cases. And John, I mean, you and your colleagues, this is luckily something you don't have to necessarily worry about because you're there for work and you get a great seat through your job. But what about people who don't have that privilege? What sort of things are you hearing from them? Yeah, I've got great, great sympathy with people who have made it their life to go to tournaments, whether it's Euros, World Cups and follow their team.

10:08And what I'm intrigued to find out is, is this going to be different? Because even as a commentator, I think all of the World Cups that I've covered, all seven of them up to this point, one of the great joys is that mix of humanity, football supporters, people who are coming from all over the world and mixed together in big numbers in the host cities and all around the host countries. are we going to see that to the same degree here and not only that inside the stadiums you know to see huge stands full of supporters of one country i'm not sure that is going to be a thing at this world cup and and from my point of view from an observer's point of view that makes it a lesser spectacle you know only only a few days ago i was at the champions league final in budapest brilliant you know 17 000 supporters and i know people will say it should be many more than that but 17 000 supporters of the two teams involved psg at one end arsenal at the other the color the atmosphere that that provides you know is everything around the organization ticket prices hotels transport etc etc is that actually going to completely change the face of this world cup i have i have a feeling it might because you because you have a sort of generic crowd rather than people who are true partisans.

11:30Yeah, just to echo what John's saying, but, you know, when you go along to like the World Cup or the Euros, you know, one of the most like almost quite moving bits of going to games as a fan is just seeing like all these different people from all different parts of the world often trying to talk to each other. Like there's a real like happiness. And I think when we talk about the politics, I wonder whether like if that happiness were to exist between the fans, that that could perhaps eclipse some of the political conversation. But like John's saying, if the kind of ingredients aren't there, then that might not be the case.

12:01And like some of, I investigate all the bad stuff on social media, but some of my favourite social media content is often like football fans at the World Cup. Like people will try and take pictures with like every fan from every country and all that kinds of stuff. You just wonder if, yeah, the vibe might be a bit different. And Anthony, sticking with the pricing thing, explain to me this story about what sounds like the world's most expensive train. Yeah, so this has been a source of controversy. It is a train that runs from New York City to the football stadium, MetLife Stadium, which I think is being rebranded as New Jersey Stadium to avoid corporate sponsorship issues for the World Cup where the championship match is going to be held.

12:40And this train, because a lot of people are going to be staying in New York, there's nothing really around the stadium in the Meadowlands of New Jersey. It's basically just an empty field and swamp. It could cost it originally was being slated as costing one hundred and twenty dollars round trip to get there. This is a ticket that normally costs commuters in the areas only about ten dollars. So a massive markup. And the reason why the markup took place was because, according to the governor of New Jersey, the FIFA wasn't shouldering any of the costs of transport. And this was all required for security.

13:18And in order to run these trains, more often in order to handle the mass crowds. Now, since then, there's been a deal struck. I think the ticket's gone down. And those haven't been selling out quite as much as I think they anticipated. Only a fraction of them have been sold. But it shows some of these additional costs, some of these unpredicted, for fans coming to the United States, costs for getting to these stadiums, it's catching them by surprise. and it is generating a lot of angst and anger from the folks who want to get to a stadium, which you can't walk to. You could drive, but parking's going to be expensive too.

13:54So you pretty much have to take the train. They're stuck. Anthony, you've got to dash and go do some actual news now. So I'll let you go. All right. It was great talking to you. Bye. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. So Faisal, intellectual point from you, please. Isn't this just proof that football, like lots of things, is just now a giant global commodity? and with globalization that means the best seats go to the highest bidders. Yeah I mean actually I think this is a very American model of if you like they're treating this like Super Bowls and they're pricing it like it's a Super Bowl final that's not always going to be the case with some you know particularly I think it's in Los Angeles where they've got not the most famous teams in the world up against each other that may not fill the stadium so you You can pick up tickets for$200 to$300 if you want to see, I think, Jordan.

14:44But yeah, it's tricky. But it's very out of character for these tournaments to have things like not just charging people$80 to$100. In Boston, it is$80. But then you can't get there any other way. You know, it seems quite like you're being channeled into this one form of transport. whereas in Qatar, in Germany, all around the world, in Germany 20 years ago, they let everybody travel the entire breadth of Germany on their bullet trains essentially for free. People were starting in Frankfurt and ending up in Berlin if they had a ticket to a match. You know, obviously that's not going to... And so you had a totally different, you know, as Mariana points out, you had a totally different vibe.

15:30You had like thousands of young people on their interrail trip like going from city to city where the best games are so very different here sort of luxury experience are people going to do the old sort of nfl style what they call tailgating with like a barbecue out of their giant suv is that the type of thing that's going to happen and the prices have followed um and the question you know and fifa have sat there saying well we're pricing this like it's a north american tournament um very different from qatar as i said even though you know there were questions about the atmosphere there and how involved and passionate the fans were in a in the gulf um it's going coming back to spain and morocco and portugal i just don't think the spanish public for example who are a little bit more like they're never going to or the spanish government which is pretty left wing yeah see if they're still in place in four years time but like i just can't imagine that they'll they'll allow this so this is like it may be a very one-off experience it's interesting that it's a similar thing prices are still being charged in canada mexico although there are limits on on on reselling the tickets but yeah it they are saying if ticket touts are going to make thousands of dollars because they happen to have been allocated a ticket in a drawer ballot no we're gonna we're gonna take that money and they would argue we're going to recycle it into the sort of footballing family yeah i mean that is and we'll come on to fifa's finances in a second but i just wanted to play this clip of gianni infantino from fifa reacting to this idea that's done the rounds that there is a two million pounds ticket and here's what gianni infantino said about that if some people put on a secondary on the resale market some tickets for the final at two million dollars number one it doesn't mean that the tickets cost two million dollars number two it doesn't mean that somebody will buy these tickets actually if somebody buys a ticket for the final two minutes, I will personally bring him a hot dog and a Coke to make sure that he has a great experience.

17:33But, you know, we have to look at the market. We are in a market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world. So we have to apply market rates. in the US it is permitted to resell tickets as well. So if you were to sell tickets at a price which is too low, these tickets would be resold at a much higher price and as a matter of fact even though some people are saying that the ticket prices we have are high they still end up on the resale market at an even higher price, more than double I think that's the if you can't beat him, join him argument. Also, I think Gianni Infantino is there talking from my own reading of the FIFA Ticketing website about a hospitality package, the Coke and the hot dog you actually have to pay extra for to get access to one of the pitch side bars.

18:37John, do we think this two million pound ticket actually exists or has it just become a bit of a sort of an emblem for just how expensive it all is? It was reported that there were four tickets available behind the goal for the final for almost$2.3 million each. By the way, behind the goal is not that good. Behind the goal, exactly. I'm too small. I wouldn't be able to see anything. But you see, the clincher here will be, and it is true what he says about how much it costs to watch sports in America. The US Open Golf goes on when we'll be at the World Cup in the United States. and to go to a day's golf at the US Open, it's hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a ticket.

19:18But what the clincher will be is, and will perhaps set the tone for future World Cups, is if all of the stadiums are full when it comes to it. You know, everyone's saying, well, they won't be full. People won't pay it. But if they are full, then, you know, that's it, isn't it? The floodgates are open. And John, just on the logistics, I mean, fans might find themselves traversing a lot of miles, depending on how their team does. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Qatar and this World Cup could not be more different because I think the longest drive we had in Qatar was about an hour and a half to the furthest stadium away.

19:58And, you know, people could go to several matches per day. And actually, I think if you had a match ticket, travel on the public transport, on the metro, the glistening Qatar metro was free for anyone who had a ticket. And for this one, some locations are 2 ,800 miles apart from one another. And the cost of flights will be exorbitant as well. So, you know, that's another factor in it all. And that's the thing, Faisal, even though America is the inventor of the low-cost airline, air travel in America has become very expensive in the last few years. It has. When you hear the phrase made in China, what do you think?

20:40I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. And today on our show, we look at the origins and evolution of made in China, because it actually wasn't inevitable. What we're talking about is the world's largest communist nation is at the beating heart of the capitalist system. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

21:10And this also kind of shines a light on the economic impact because it's so diffuse, because you've got lots of cities and they're very far apart. the concentrated impact on these economies won't be as much as it was i think it was an eight percent lift in the gdp of qatar it was smaller and so they're often justified you we had the clip at the top there of saying it's going to raise 20 30 billion it's not actually that much in terms of the the size of the american economy um what you tend to see the justification for and in this case what's interesting is that they haven't funded huge infrastructure improvements often what you see is that it you get new stadiums you get motorways built you get metro systems built you get new airports being built and in fact the reason there isn't a match in washington dc is because the stadium there is sort of falling apart and isn't hasn't been rebuilt yet yeah and so it'll be a bit weird because there'll be very big cities chicago is another city where the world cup is not happening um and then there are other cities where they haven't quite got the the sort of big golden ticket games where they've cancelled their fan parks and things and there's a lot of other stuff going on in the States.

22:19I do wonder in economic terms though, like in a bigger picture, you've talked about Iran in previous episodes, it's just so fascinating to think that you've got Mexico, Canada, the US hosting this. They've been at loggerheads on the trade war. You've got US and Iran. I just wonder if Trump's going to go for some sort of ceasefire, some sort of World Cup ceasefire. Just to buy that peace prize. Well, no, one wonders, which, you know, I know maybe that could free up what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz and that might be a bit of an impact. So I think there's a lot of sort of geopolitics and geoeconomics kind of coursing through this World Cup.

23:01But the actual macro boost to these three countries is probably going to be on the low side because a lot of other stuff going on. But America doesn't really need an economic boost, does it? I mean, I think Donald Trump might. Well, it's not going to register on the scale of what's happening in a different area, like in their AI. Where basically the cost of living is going through the roof, but the American stock market is going through the roof. But equally, American government borrowing is going through the roof as well. John, help me out here. And this is probably a very difficult question to answer with FIFA's finances, because they keep talking about they're a not-for-profit organisation.

23:35Yeah. And listen, also, it does cost a lot to put the World Cup on. However, they expect to make many billions more than that in revenue. But you're right. FIFA is a not-for-profit organization and it says it reinvests the revenue from the World Cup to fuel the growth of the game across all of the associations, over 200 member associations and all of the various levels as well. And remember as well, the power that Infantino is playing into here with a 48-team World Cup, it means that he is giving many more associations the chance to be on the big stage with the biggest teams and the biggest countries.

24:21So that's why we've got Cape Verde, Kurosaw, Jordan, Uzbekistan involved in the World Cup for the first time because it's so big. And also lots and lots of other countries, not least Scotland, Adam, appearing in the World Cup for the first time for a long time. Iraq is another one, the last team to qualify. Iraq haven't played at the World Cup since 1986. So, you know, we're talking about this from a UK point of view. and we've talked a lot about England and what they might do but you know when you look at it through the lens of Uzbekistan then this is what they've been waiting for football fans in Uzbekistan forever And Faisal, is FIFA kind of doing the global economy a bit of a favour here because we're always told that people go out and buy new TVs when the World Cup is on Or loads of stickers Yeah, stickers just to give one example or massive pallets and kegs of beer to drink with their mates in the back garden when their team is playing.

25:19Does it give global GDP a boost? You do see a boost to consumption. You do see the super, you won't be able to move possibly already in the supermarkets for various official and unofficial sponsorships. The faces of the England team and Scotland team kind of emblazoned everywhere. And there is a modest effect on consumption. Could it inject a bit of much needed feel-good factor? into the UK economy. It's been lacking. I think I'll probably put it like that. I mean, certainly I remember coming out of COVID when that delayed Euro 2020 tournament happened. It did suddenly feel like, you know, something happened generally with society and then something sort of happened to help the economy rebound at that point.

26:10So yeah, if the home nations do well, if your nation does well, I think once I saw a piece of economic research saying the best economic boost you can get is if the if the host country of which they're three now does well then you can see a material impact on gdp i think that would be difficult country with the american with the americans but certainly if you're them if you're mexico kind of you know we shouldn't rule out in front of home audiences what that can do to the canadians they've got you know a handy set of players john will be better cited on that i think mexicans can you know they've got a few skills up their sleeve um so yeah i think that that is the that is the the the the big in the big impact and i've heard as well it could give um a bit of a boost to the costa brava and maybe all sorts of venues on the mediterranean because um a little bit like we've seen in recent years with the cheltenham racing festival that people have decided it's too expensive they're going to go and watch it all in benedorm or wherever it happens to be there is there is some talk that people have decided nope we're not going to go to the united states we're actually going to go and watch it en masse in spain or wherever so wow so i'm trying to think of what my equivalent of that would be like not being able to go to los angeles for the oscars but just going to like york for the weekend to watch the oscars in a nicer time i think i've just come up with a holiday plan yeah faisal i know you've got to go and it's to go and do work not to go on that website yeah no no exactly okay okay thank you very much see you soon right this has very much been like the journalist zone because we've been talking about the the politics the diplomacy how conflict is going to play out on the football pitch the personal relationships the money some of the tensions around it so that's the journalist zone is closing for business i'm going to reopen the fan zone now mariana tell me something you're actually you're just looking forward to other than collecting stickers for my non-specified uh book all all sticker books are available um i just think that there's something about and i actually think this is this is sorry this is super cliched but nonetheless i feel like this is the moment to say it um when you spend a lot of your time investigating like outrage on social media and algorithmic division and polarization these kinds of tournaments feel like an opportunity for that to be sort of overcome and i i kind of there's a little bit of me that slightly worries that maybe we're all so kind of algorithmically polarized and sort of loggerheads with one another, particularly because of what's unfolding on our feeds, that maybe that unity is not quite so possible in a way that it used to be.

28:43But it always seems like football is the time where people are able to kind of like put aside all of the other issues that they're arguing about and, you know, get behind a particular team. And, you know, even just watching, and I'm sure John knew for this, like the most random group game is just such a fun experience. Like it's not even just about watching your national team. It's just like watching these teams, particularly those teams that are so excited to be at the World Cup because they've not been there before. Like I absolutely love doing that. Yeah. You know, I've got my diary sitting here next to me and I know that when I look at it, my eyes are drawn to the England matches.

29:19But you're absolutely right, Mariana. at the other matches as well, which any match you go to at the World Cup, it means so much to the supporters of the two teams that are involved. You know, it is the biggest deal and you really feel that when you go there and sit in a Hmong state and see those players singing the national anthem and the supporters in the stands. That's why it is so important to have as big a number as possible in the stands of supporters from those countries being there so they can share the emotion of it but you know of all of the things that i do in this job you know i i'm very fortunate to go to you know commentate on big football matches big sporting events the world cup is the best for me because of the the joy that it brings but at the same time it really means something to the supporters of those teams they really really care well i can't wait to hear you doing the day job john um i just remember italia 90 scotland being there in the world cup and it felt like the sunniest happiest summer of my childhood and i even remember things like a special episode of rab c nesbitt which mariana is an old scottish sitcom uh it was big in those days that was where they went they went to italy for that and then of course the three tenors at the end of it and just things that are seared into a nation's consciousness but things that are seared in in a nice way rather than a than a bad way so there's a lot of echoes there for for scottish people this time around right john i know on football daily you have your your tradition of the ranking the the phrases from the commentary box yeah the the great glossary of football commentary we we call it so we have a long long list actually which is on there on bbc sounds if you if you go to the commentator's view you can actually see the the phrases that were on there you know which which refer to football commentary wherever it happens to be but if i was going to throw one in that I will almost certainly use ahead of the opening match between Mexico and South Africa in the Aztec Stadium, the Azteca.

31:21I'd be very surprised if the phrase iconic venue doesn't slip out onto the airwaves because that's what it is. So iconic venue will be, I think, top of the list when it comes to the first match at this World Cup. Well, I've just signed up to present Newsnight on the night of the 17th of June, which I didn't realise is England versus Croatia, first England match. So I'll try and get some of your phrases in on Newsnight. So I feel like I'm part of the action to the eight viewers who will be watching that night. I think I can see how that presentation is going to unfold. Yeah, I wonder how many other people they asked before they got to me.

32:01Right. John, it's been great hanging out with you. Thank you. Mariana, great to see you too. Thanks for having me. and newscasters and americasters if you have liked this taste of the footballing life you can get John Murray and his colleagues from 5 Live and the commentary box on Football Daily well every day talking about football but that's the end of this little mini series which has been brought to you by me from Newscast me Mariana from AmeriCast with Anthony and me John Murray from the Football Daily loads of great BBC podcasts for you to listen to on BBC Sounds in between the how many matches is it 104 104 in between the 104 football matches that we'll all be listening to over the next few weeks.

32:40Bye-bye. Thank you for answering our call and continuing to send your messages to us. We do read every single one. We love to hear your thoughts, your feedback and questions as well. So please do keep them coming. You can send us an email. It's americast at bbc.co.uk. The WhatsApp is 443301239480. and you can get involved in the AmeriCast Discord server. The link to that is in the description. And don't forget to subscribe. That way you will never miss an episode. Until next time, bye.

33:38When you hear the phrase made in China, what do you think? I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. And today on our show, we look at the origins and evolution of made in China, because it actually wasn't inevitable. What we're talking about is the world's largest communist nation is at the beating heart of the capitalist system. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.