'We feel excluded': expensive tickets dampen World Cup excitement in Mexico

theguardian.com

11 points·prmph··6 comments

They’re going to play the games in countries they aren’t all that fond of footy (US, Canada) with very high ticket prices. In the case of the US, fan access is going to be expensive and difficult. So I hope the tv contracts are good as they’re going to be needed for the real fans to watch the games.

And there’s a lot of games. Far too many to have nfl Super Bowl like attendance.

> And there’s a lot of games.

Yes, the move to 48 countries is driven by greed, but I it kinds of makes the games unwieldy. The previous 32 countries I think was optimal, though some would argue that that was even still too much.

The world cup is losing it soul to unbridled capitalism.

Bold of you to assume the World Cup was never a capitalist entity to begin with.

It was, but within reason.

Currently they are just milking the spectacle. Maybe in the future all countries will be allowed (no-playoffs) and together with sky high ticket prices, this will ensure the maximum payoff

Of course it was; but it's also a valid observation that the capitalist aspect has jumped the shark. Qatar was my shark, but I was also dismayed by the South Africa finals, when the organizers banned private street food vendors near the venues, because they supposedly competed with Official World Cup Sponsors. Those vendors had always done business in those locations. More to the point of this story, tickets to live events in general have become exclusionary to anyone who is not wealthy, and now those live events also have become difficult to find on the air.

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