U.S. Soccer aims to build buzz for this summer’s World Cup, but many fans care only about ticket prices

The exact details aren’t all set yet, but the picture is starting to come together in U.S. Soccer’s buildup to this summer’s FIFA World Cup.

Four of the big pieces are well-known: the games the men’s national team will play before the tournament kicks off. They’ll face Belgium and Portugal at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on March 28 and 31, respectively, with the game against the Portuguese sold out at the 71,000-seat venue.

The World Cup team will be announced at an event in New York in late May. U.S. Soccer Federation chief marketing officer Catherine Newman revealed the news during a speech Friday at the United Soccer Coaches Convention, and said the event will be open to the public in some form.

She did not specify the exact date or venue, so it’s unclear just how many fans will be able to attend.

The team’s training camp will start right after that at the new national training center in suburban Atlanta. U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino has already said he’ll set the roster before camp starts, not wanting to leave any choices until the last minute.

There will be two tournament warm-up games: First, Senegal on May 31 in Charlotte, followed by a match against Germany on June 6 in Chicago. After that, the team will head to southern California to get ready for its World Cup opener against Paraguay on June 12 in Inglewood, Calif.

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Another milestone along the way will be the unveiling of the team’s World Cup jerseys in mid-March. Some renderings have already made the rounds on social media, of a red-and-white horizontal striped primary kit and a navy alternate kit with a star pattern.

“You’ve seen the leaks, I’m sure — I’m not going to stand up here and pretend that you haven’t,” Newman said. “And [I] will not confirm or deny if they’re true either. But what I can say is that the kits are absolutely fantastic, they look brilliant, and importantly, the players helped us to design them.”

Perhaps the details of how that happened will become known upon the official announcement.

Newman tried to make the case that “what we are trying to do with a lot of things at U.S. Soccer is to make sure that if you can’t attend a match, that you can attend things with U.S. Soccer … Just come in and be a fan, that’s all we ask.”

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But those words will be met with skepticism from some fans, for one big reason: ticket prices.

People who’ve paid attention know that U.S. Soccer has no influence on World Cup ticket prices. In fact, the 2026 host nations’ bid book proposed prices far lower than what FIFA decided on.

But there have been complaints for years about the prices of tickets for U.S. Soccer’s own games, whether in big NFL stadiums or smaller MLS venues.

So it will be noticed that as of Friday, tickets for the Belgium game were available for $44 through the governing body’s official sales page, run by TicketMaster. Unfortunately, the news was less positive for the other games: $73 and up for Senegal, $122 and up for Germany, and $193 and up for what’s left for Portugal.

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That doesn’t seem to fit with Newman’s claim that “we are not an expensive option in the U.S.,” even as she referred to $40 tickets and a free “block party” at last year’s U.S. women’s team game at SoFi Stadium. That’s the venue where the U.S. men will play two of its three World Cup group games.

“We try very hard to think about that as part of our pricing, and to make it as affordable as we can,” Newman said. “And if we think about those four matches, there will be fan activations for all fans that our commercial partners are helping us [with], and there will be no cost to the fans. It is very important to us that fans can participate and can be part of it.”

She pivoted from there to more community-oriented events like watch parties, noting that U.S. Soccer is working with the American Outlaws supporters’ group to promote events across the country.

“Soccer isn’t about just being in the stadium,” Newman said. “It’s about how you watch at home, and how you have those other parts. And that is where it’s incumbent on all of us as part of the soccer community to make sure that people feel part of that.”

As true as that point is on its own, the words might not satisfy fans who want to take their family to a game, and look at ticket prices before anything else.