These costs should be borne by the organization that is earning money out of these events, which is FIFA. It should not always be the host cities that take on all the expenses,” Gogishvili said, noting the soccer body’s expected $13 billion revenue from 2023-26.
Huge events like this and the Olympics cost local communities a ton of money.
The $95 bus fare was never going to break the bank, Phillips-Hunter knows, but he and so many other Scots are already paying huge sums to see their men’s team compete in the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. Phillips-Hunter estimates it will take him two years to pay off the credit card debt he’s taking on for his six-day trip to the U.S., including the $1,350 he spent on a ticket for the Scotland-Morocco match.
How could a 6 day event be worth debt that would take 2 years to pay off?
People in the US generally don’t care about soccer, so they wouldn’t see the value in eating the cost for people to come here and use up a considerable amount of infrastructure.
I like soccer, but not enough to watch it (or any other sports). If the burden is so great on the cities, then the ones who make the most should offset the cost. But then how would those that make the most…make the most?
FIFA, in their infinite wisdom, made the decision to have all the parking around MetLife Stadium used for (paid) fan and merch space. MetLife is primarily built for car traffic, so this is a disaster waiting to happen. Yet another example of their greed and hubris. This was so poorly thought out.
I can’t speak for other countries, but at the world cup in Germany, your ticket to the stadium was your ticket for public transit, and it was all inclusive.
Yeah, don’t come here. It’s shit.
Since then, World Cup host countries have invested heavily in getting fans to and from matches, especially in Russia in 2018, where even long-distance trains between host cities were free, and Qatar in 2022, where free metro access helped turn stadium-hopping into part of the tournament experience.
The World Cup Is Great For FIFA—And A Bad Bet For Cities
The best available estimate suggested a $14 million shortfall on a $22 million public investment. That’s not a rounding error, but a warning for all cities looking to host a large-scale sporting event.
That’s not so bad, if you consider that it’s only 5 dollars per hour
Here in my country football matches, but also many concerts and so on come with a free public transit ticket.
They prob already have the infrastructure and routes in the standard daily usage… most of these I am guessing will not be standard routes or infrastructure, and just temporary for the events.
Civilised countries use events like this as a vehicle (no pun intended) to build infrastructure - like public transport - for the event that will then be a public good after.
Nope. It’s the normal busses and trains. On a usual day they charge $12.50 for the airport to city train, but the city decided to just turn it up to $100 for this event.
Similarly the prices on the normal busses are going to be special event rates.
People who regularly use those trains to commute are also pissed.
That about sums it up for the organization of this whole thing from what I’ve heard.
I simply do not understand the appeal of watching other people doing sports, and the amount of money, energy, space, and resources spent on sporting events is mind boggling.
