Thousands of tickets were still available Thursday evening for the United States’ June 12 World Cup opener against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium, leaving the match far from a sellout with the tournament only two weeks away. More than 3,500 tickets were open on FIFA’s primary portal, while over 6,500 more were listed on its resale platform.
That gives the U.S.-Paraguay game more than 10,000 tickets still in play across official channels, a striking number for a match that was initially billed as one of the tournament’s most attractive. SoFi Stadium will hold around 69,650 people for World Cup matches, and FIFA has kept the opener’s prices at $2,735 in Category 1, $1,940 in Category 2 and $1,120 in Category 3 since sales began last October.
The lag matters because the match is at the center of the World Cup schedule fans are already tracking, and because FIFA has not made it easy to know exactly how many tickets remain. The governing body holds back inventory throughout the process and does not publicly disclose sales or availability data, even as inventory trackers and data observed by The Athletic suggested tickets were moving at only a few dozen per day through May.
FIFA added thousands of new U.S.-Paraguay tickets to its portal on May 7 after what appeared to be a slower-than-expected month of sales, and throughout May more tickets were seemingly added than were sold for the opener at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles. On top of that, many tickets on FIFA’s resale platform and third-party sites were listed below FIFA’s primary prices, with some going for less than half the official cost even after fees and taxes.
A document dated April 10 and distributed to local organizers listed 40,934 tickets purchased for the U.S. match, compared with 50,661 for the Iran-New Zealand game three days later at the same venue. It was unclear whether those numbers included hospitality and other tickets not sold to the public, and FIFA declined to clarify. A FIFA spokesperson said it would be misleading and irresponsible to publish the sales figures as fact.
The ticket picture leaves one unresolved question: whether the U.S.-Paraguay opener will be able to close the gap before kickoff. For a game that was supposed to help launch the tournament with a full house, the market is signaling something else.
