A person requesting ticket outside Dallas stadium in Arlington, Texas, ahead of kick-off in England’s opening game against Croatia at the 2026 World Cup. Picture date: Wednesday June 17, 2026. (Photo by James Manning/PA Images via Getty Images)
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After seeing surging ticket prices throughout the group stage – defying expectations and mostly affirming FIFA’s asserstions that the 2026 World Cup would include unprecedented ticket demand – the knockout stage has brought a considerable reversal of trends.
According to the website TicketData, the average “get in” resale price on the secondary market has fallen for every single knockout phase fixture over the last seven days, and all but one (Croatia vs. Portugal in Toronto on Wednesday) has seen a drop over the last three days.
There’s a range of reasons for this.
People buy knockout round matches often speculating about the teams in them, only to see those guesses upended by the competition on the field. Additionally, the short turnaround of knockout play makes advance travel arrangements more difficult, adding to the total cost per match for many fans.
Further, perhaps prices are coming down simply because it became virtually impossible to keep going up. Even these newer, “cheaper” tickets cost several fold what has been normal at previous World Cups and European Championships.
And lastly, as popular as the World Cup is, there’s still a large portion of the American ticket buying public that is only casually tuned in. Those consumers are the ones who are far more likely to make plans a few months in advance for the group stage, but not a few days in advance for the single-elimination contests.
If you’re a budget-conscious soccer consumer, though, all you really care about is that you might finally have an avenue toward buying tickets at a price you can live with. If this sounds like you, here’s some advice for snagging last-minute bargains.
Don’t Ignore FIFA Primary and Resale Platforms
After very little in the way of new tickets made available during the group stage, FIFA released several thousand new tickets at the start of the knockout round. Most of those have since been snapped up, but it seems possible – likely even – that there will be small further waves released as single-elimination play continues.
If you haven’t created a fan ID on FIFA’s website, you can still do that. You’ll need one to be able to purchase tickets if they come available.
Additionally, while TicketData tracks the commercial resale sites we’re familiar with from American sports, it’s also worth monitoring how FIFA’s own resale site to compare prices there.
The big benefit of FIFA’s site is that all the transactions are guaranteed. This wipes out the risk of fraud that some fans have encountered while using StubHub and other sites, and also allows you a later window for buying tickets than other resellers, at which transactions have to be fully completed and transferred an hour before kickoff.
Think Like A Fan
Forecasting future price movement is tricky. But one thing that can help is understanding what is (or isn’t) motivating other fans.
For example, if you two teams are evenly matched on the field but not in the stands, you might develop the strategy of rooting for lesser supported teams to win, then monitoring the resale price after their victories. We’ve seen real examples of where this would’ve been fruitful, such as when South Africa upset South Korea to grab a spot in their round of 32 match against Canada, much to the dismay of a huge Korean population in Southern California near the host venue in Inglewood.
You might expect to see similar trends at future round of 16 matches if Senegal or Ivory Coast pull off minor upsets against more polished and known European opponents over the next couple days.
Factor In Total Costs
Ticket prices are only one part of the equation for attending a big event like the World Cup, particularly if you don’t reside near one of the 16 host markets.
The increased expense of last-minute travel arrangements is one factor that is almost certainly driving down knockout round sales. So you also need to see what your transit costs might be before committing to a last-minute purchase in a faraway market.
Additionally, the logistics of parking or using mass transit are wildly different between host markets, with some cities shouldering nearly all the costs and others passing the majority onto fans in the form of significant transit ticket price hikes.
Have Targets In Mind
It can be tempting to try and wait for the bottom of the market, but before you go scouring for last-minute deals, have a threshold in mind about what you’re willing to spend.
That way, if and when prices drop to that level, you can act immediately rather than fret over whether you’re getting the absolute best value possible.
This might not be the overall cheapest way to purchase tickets. But it will help free your mind from endless monitoring of the resale market, and perhaps allow you to refocus attention to planning other details of your matchday (food, transit, etc.) that could also make a difference to your bottom line.