President Donald Trump accepts a peace award from FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, during the World Cup drawing on Dec. 5. (White House)
President Donald Trump has been promoting the World Cup event, where many countries will come to the U.S. for the International football games, but it turns out ticket sales aren't going well.
Newsweek reported Wednesday that "despite the scale of the tournament, ticket demand has proven to be somewhat lackluster." On Monday, ticket prices began falling to below $100 for games held in the U.S.
Ticket Talk host Scott Friedman told Newsweek previously that FIFA began with prices that were far too high. He called it a "complete disaster." He expected the prices to drop within 30 days of his statement, now it appears he was spot on.
"Tickets for the June 22 clash between Jordan and Algeria in San Francisco were listed from as low as $98 on secondary markets, while the average cheapest resale price across group-stage games still sits significantly higher, at around $559," the report said, citing analytics firm TicketData.
While FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, called the games akin to "1,000 years of World Cups at once," even FIFA began dropping some of its hotel room bookings last month.
A report at the time from the Daily Beast suggested that anti-American sentiment was prompting people to stay away from the big events. Last year, hotel company executives thought that the World Cup would bring in millions of international visitors and give local economies a $30.5 billion economic boost.
According to Newsweek, there are at least nine group-stage games with more than 1,000 tickets left, Ticket Scout said.
It isn't unique to the United States, however. The tickets for Canada v. Bosnia, which will be held in Toronto, show that there are around 3,000 more tickets available, accounting for over $8 million in sales.
SportsNet reported in April that the pricetag was massive.
Jagger Long, owner of Toronto-based Karma Tickets, told fans to "wait it out."
"Wait it out to let the kind of madness happen and wait for prices to drop. And unfortunately, I don't think they're going to go from $3,000 to $1,000, but maybe $3,000 to $2,000 (or) $3,000 to $1,800, that's possible," he said.