Where does FIFA’s decision to implement dynamic pricing for World Cup tickets fit into growing the game? We asked.

In the lead-up to FIFA’s announcement of how 2026 World Cup ticket sales will work, officials held a media briefing to explain all the details.

It’s the sort of thing soccer’s governing body and other sports entities do all the time. A group of officials met with a group of reporters to discuss matters and provide details in a less formal setting than a news conference.

For the most part, the event went as expected. There were questions, answers, and some walks into and out of the weeds.

There also was a moment of surprising honesty.

It happened amid an acknowledgment of something that was reported months ago but not confirmed until now: FIFA will use dynamic pricing for ticket sales. It will be the first time in the men’s World Cup’s 96-year, 23-event history that this happens, instead of prices being flat and clear.

When FIFA did this for the recent Club World Cup, there was widespread scorn. Why was it necessary, especially for an event in which many games weren’t expected to sell out?

The point was proved when prices for many games fell instead of rising. Fans understandably assumed at first that dynamic pricing only would send prices up, since that’s how it usually goes with concerts and big sports events.

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Now here the world is again, waiting to buy into what will no doubt be the most-attended World Cup in history. The process was set to start Wednesday with an initial lottery entry window for Visa cardholders and will run in stages over the coming months.

The first edition with 48 teams will see 104 games across 16 cities in three countries. All 11 U.S. stadiums, including Philadelphia’s, are NFL venues. Mexico and Canada’s arenas are big-time too, especially Mexico City’s legendary Estadio Azteca and Vancouver’s BC Place — both former hosts of World Cup finals.

FIFA expects to sell 6.5 million tickets across the tournament. Some wonder whether it was really necessary to drain the public’s wallet for every ounce.

Much of the public would say no. But when last Wednesday’s announcement landed, almost no one was surprised. In fact, the only unexpected thing was how honest FIFA was in admitting it.

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“I think it’s key to highlight FIFA’s mission and FIFA’s objective of providing funding, providing opportunities, providing growth to our sport across all of the 211 member associations,” FIFA’s 2026 World Cup chief operating officer Heimo Schirgi said.

“And as part of that mission, which we take very seriously, we’re looking at optimizing the revenue, but also optimizing attendance in the stadium, right?” Schirgi continued. “It’s always a balance between different factors.”

In fairness, some amount of that is not new. For decades, FIFA has used revenues from the men’s World Cup to bankroll the rest of its operations, from the women’s World Cup (which these days is almost profitable on its own) to under-20 and under-17 age group men’s and women’s championships. There’s also a beach soccer World Cup, a futsal (indoor soccer) World Cup, and other events FIFA puts on around the world.

None of them are cheap, and FIFA generally doesn’t skimp on logistical stuff.

Some of the money also gets paid to those 211 national federations around the world for their operations. It’s easy to imagine how happy the people who cash those checks are (although it’s never been easy to find out how all the money is spent).

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Schirgi claimed that selling 2026 World Cup tickets in stages will put a natural check on prices. There are two upcoming stages of lotteries for the general public, one before the Dec. 5 group draw and one after it.

Ticket lotteries for World Cups also aren’t new. Even with the scale of this edition, demand worldwide always is miles bigger than supply. (And every cent of that revenue will go to FIFA, not to the host cities spending hundreds of millions of dollars.)

“What differentiates us to other events that are subjected to dynamic pricing is the fact that we are regulating the access to tickets,” Schirgi said. “So it’s not open to the wide, general public, as, for example, a Taylor Swift concert is, but it is a selected group. Which means that you know the curves of how the prices are adjusted are not as steep and are more balanced across the different phases.”

Another FIFA source added further context to Schirgi’s remarks. While the Club World Cup used Ticketmaster as its sales platform, FIFA will use its in-house platform for this tournament. That theoretically gives FIFA greater control over how much prices rise — and how fast.

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The cheapest ticket for a group-stage game is set to start at $60 before dynamic pricing takes effect. So how many fans — or, perhaps more accurately, how few — actually will be able to buy at that price?

FIFA wouldn’t say. But everyone spoken to for this story knows the public will be skeptical until they see proof that prices aren’t skyrocketing immediately.

Nor would the officials say exactly how they’ve carved each stadium into the four levels of pricing that will be used because that work wasn’t finished when they briefed the media.

At least there was word that seating maps of the stadiums showing the four categories should be made available. And there was a hint that, at most, 25% of the seats will be the cheapest, Category 4, with variance in the raw number based on a stadium’s size.

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FIFA also said it’s working on having specific sales windows for fans who live in the United States and perhaps for the host cities specifically. But there were no details on potential timing.

“We will not have prices exploding,” Schirgi said, a quote worth remembering. “But there will be this early access opportunity for Visa customers and then, obviously, for host city residents, host country residents. [We] gave you already a little bit of a preview of something that we’re working on to have some sort of priority access for host country inhabitants, let’s call it like that, at a later stage.”

However all of this goes, at least FIFA’s motives will be clear. As another source put it, since dynamic pricing is now common across the U.S. and Canada, why shouldn’t FIFA get to profit like everyone else?

(Things are different in Mexico, where ticket resale laws are stricter. So FIFA will run a separate platform there, with exchanges only at face value.)

In other words, FIFA is doing this because it can. Even though the organization had $3 billion in cash reserves last year, demand for tickets will far exceed complaints about the prices.

If all of this feels like a lot of uncertainty with nine months to go until kickoff, you aren’t alone. So here are some things that are certain, and have been ever since North America won the 2026 hosting rights seven years ago.

No matter when or how you get a shot at buying tickets, there will be huge demand. They almost certainly will be expensive. And if you don’t get them when you can, however much they cost, someone else will.