Arlington City Council was given a World Cup update in Tuesday’s meeting, which showed fewer than half of the overall tickets have been sold.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Only 35-50% of the overall 700,000 tickets for the nine matches at “Dallas Stadium” — or AT&T Stadium for the locals — have been sold to date, according to Arlington City Council.
Councilmembers were given a World Cup update during Tuesday’s meeting, which highlighted the lack of ticket sales less than a month away from the first match kicking off. But there is some important context to these numbers that contributes to this eye-grabbing statistic.
First, these figures shared in the Arlington City Council meeting do not include tickets sold in the May 8 ticket drop that FIFA did. The soccer governing body has been intentionally holding tickets back and releasing them over time, which creates an artificial ticket scarcity that, in turn, “justifies” the high prices they are demanding.
Second, but related, Arlington city officials highlighted this point further related to the knockout stage matches. Councilmembers were told Tuesday that FIFA is withholding 50% of all knockout round match tickets until they know which teams are playing in those games. So 50% of four of the nine matches aren’t even available for purchase. That roughly equates to 150,000 of the 700,000 tickets — you can’t even buy them if you want to.
The other piece of that puzzle, anecdotally, is that the prices are just too astronomical for people to be interested. An England fan coming to the U.S. even had to sell a house in order to make the trip.
Speaking of England, the England vs. Croatia match is among highest draws on the slate, according to Arlington’s hotel bookings. More hotels have been booked around this match and the semifinal than any other, officials said in Tuesday’s council meeting.
The first match in DFW is Netherlands vs. Japan on June 14. The semifinal will kick off on July 14.