Well, it seems like the second window to purchase World Cup tickets has come and gone - and nothing. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm probably not going to get tickets. Unless I pay a fortune. I went on the official resell site, and here are the cheapest current resell prices for the 2 knockout games being held in Seattle - the only 2 games I would consider getting right now without knowing the teams playing in Seattle:
Round of 32: Category 1: $1320, Category 2: $713, Category 3: $430
Round of 16: Category 1: $1735, Category 2: $896, Category 3: $593
Note that Category 1 are the decent seats, Category 2 are the nosebleed seats, and Category 3 are the nosebleed corner seats. Ideally you'd want a Category 1 ticket, but good grief these prices are outrageous. Will the prices come down? For knockout games, unlikely. But I suspect most people who are lucky enough to get tickets now are buying as many as they can just to resell them later at a profit. And this is because the resell site is fundamentally flawed in having no upper limit on how much a ticket can be resold for (intentionally so, because the greedy sods at FIFA charge a 15% fee on resold tickets). Unless I can get a ticket closer to face value, I'm not sure I'm going to bother unless England somehow end up playing a game in Seattle. I hate FIFA for ruining the World Cup with outrageous prices, way too many games, and for obsequiously sucking up to Trump. And I suspect most of the games, particularly in the knockout stages, are going to end up like mini-Superbowls - where only the 1% can afford tickets, and the atmosphere is going to be soulless and corporate. So maybe I won't feel so bad about missing out on the World Cup experience.
PS Why are the fools at Fox Sports airing Belgium vs Liechtenstein and not a more important (and closer) game like those featuring Scotland or Wales? Ridiculous.
