Securing entry to the 2026 World Cup has proven to be a costly endeavor. However, for a thousand fortunate residents of New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has significantly reduced the financial burden.
During a Thursday news briefing, Mayor Mamdani revealed that the municipality had acquired 1,000 spectator spots, available to New Yorkers at a mere $50 per ticket. This initiative followed extensive discussions over several months with the New York/New Jersey organizing committee, responsible for all arrangements concerning this summer’s matches at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
“Fundamentally, football belongs to the working class. Despite this, numerous individuals from working-class backgrounds have found themselves unable to afford participation,” Mamdani conveyed to The Cooligans on Thursday. “We are immensely thrilled to welcome the World Cup, but I am aware that many New Yorkers, upon seeing the costs, questioned their ability to ever acquire such an admission?”
Additionally, these tickets will cover complimentary bus transportation, both to and from the venue, situated in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
“Every resident of New York should genuinely feel included, as our aim is to prevent sports from being considered a premium item. We do not wish for direct attendance to be perceived as solely for a select few,” Mamdani further stated. “Many of us grow up as supporters believing that the sole interaction is via television. However, individuals ought to have the genuine opportunity to attend.”
A lottery mechanism will be utilized to allocate these passes, allowing New Yorkers to submit one entry daily for an opportunity to acquire up to two tickets. The drawing commences on Monday and concludes on Saturday, May 30; a daily limit of 50,000 entries will be imposed.
This random selection process guarantees equitable ticket distribution — reflecting Mamdani’s assertion that “personal connections are irrelevant.” Furthermore, to deter resale at inflated prices, these tickets will be permanently assigned to the original recipient.
Successful participants will receive notification on June 3 and will subsequently have the privilege of attending one of the five preliminary stage games or the initial two elimination phase contests, with approximately 150 pass holders present at each event.
Last month, Mamdani and the city unveiled a comparable initiative involving the local NWSL team, Gotham FC, providing 1,000 tickets at $5 for a future game. These particular tickets were fully purchased in under sixty minutes.
This unusual action emerges in response to widespread dissatisfaction regarding the excessively high cost of World Cup admissions for the majority of supporters. Broadly, the distribution of tickets has been quite problematic: purchasers encountered extended delays, incorrect web addresses, and various other technical challenges when attempting purchases. Adding to this were the exorbitant price labels, reaching such heights that even former President Donald Trump declared he would not commit such an amount.
Per data from Gametime, only five matches had tickets obtainable for under $200 on resale platforms as of Thursday; among these five, the most affordable was the Cape Verde versus Saudi Arabia match in Houston, with an entry cost of $143.
Ticket costs have seen a minor decrease lately, partly due to the risk that their excessive expense could lead to unoccupied stadium seats. Nevertheless, they remain remarkably elevated: At MetLife, for instance, the most inexpensive entries for a preliminary match between Norway and Senegal stand at $459. Passes for the championship game, also held at MetLife, command a starting price of $7,500.
