Zohran Mamdani on Thursday announced a lottery for 1,000 discounted 2026 World Cup tickets for New York City residents, offering seats at $50 apiece with bus transportation to and from MetLife Stadium. The plan covers seven games at the 82,000-seat stadium in New Jersey, and the first entries open on 25 May at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.
The tickets will be available only to residents of the five boroughs and will be split through a random draw that allows winners to buy up to two each. Mamdani unveiled the plan in the Little Senegal neighborhood of Harlem in upper Manhattan, alongside community leaders and Tim Weah, the winger for the U.S. men’s national team and a New York native. The eligible games are Brazil v Morocco on 13 June, France v Senegal on 16 June, Norway v Senegal on 22 June, Ecuador v Germany on 25 June, and Panama v England on 27 June, plus a Round of 32 game on 30 June and a Round of 16 game on 5 July.
The lottery closes on 30 May at 5 p.m. ET and will accept no more than 50,000 entries a day. The seats are in the upper bowl of MetLife Stadium, and the initiative is a collaboration between the mayor’s office and the NY/NJ World Cup host committee. Fifa controls ticket operations and has already used dynamic pricing for sales, a system that has drawn criticism as World Cup prices and transportation costs have climbed in the New York/New Jersey area.
The city plan also lands after Fifa released only a limited number of $60 tickets, which made up about 1.6% of those offered for sale. New Jersey Transit initially set a $150 round-trip train fare between Penn Station and MetLife Stadium before cutting it to $105, while buses between New York City and the stadium are expected to run at $80 a ticket. Mamdani framed the lottery as a way to give local fans a shot at games in their own region, echoing his warning last September that there was “just no chance” for many people who love the sport to be able to go and see it. The city’s draw is the first and, so far, only special ticket program announced by a 2026 host city for its own residents, and it revives a model seen in 2022, when residents of Qatar got discounted World Cup tickets.
