Thousands of Tickets Remain Unsold for USMNT's 2026 World Cup Opening Match

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup opening days away, tickets for the U.S. men's national team's debut against Paraguay at the renamed Los Angeles Stadium (SoFi Stadium) remain widely available, a striking anomaly for a high-profile World Cup match. As of early this week, FIFA's official portal still listed over 130 tickets, while resale platforms including Ticketmaster, StubHub, SeatGeek, and Vivid Seats collectively showed more than 3,000 additional listings, with the cheapest available around $900–$1,000. Canada's opening match against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto faces a similar situation, while Mexico's opener against South Africa is the only host-nation match that appears virtually sold out. Ticketing experts and analysts broadly attribute the sluggish sales to FIFA's historically high pricing: the cheapest seats for the U.S. opener exceed what the most expensive regular seats cost at the 2022 World Cup final, and The Athletic reported that every ticket category for 2026 is more expensive than equivalent tickets at any prior FIFA tournament. The attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have launched formal investigations into FIFA's variable pricing practices, and even President Trump publicly stated he would not pay the asking prices. A Financial Times analysis found approximately 180,000 tickets still available across FIFA's official resale portals tournament-wide, and scalpers have reportedly had to discount holdings by around 20 percent to move inventory. FIFA and tournament organizers are banking on a surge of last-minute excitement once matches begin, though analysts note that perceptions of the tournament as prohibitively expensive may be difficult to reverse quickly.