FIFA says ‘market rates’ explain World Cup prices. Economists say the market was rigged by design

On Monday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood in Central Park to announce a free watch party for 50,000 New Yorkers in the park for the World Cup final. The State of New York is spending $6 million so that residents who cannot afford the most-watched sporting event on earth can at least watch it together on the Great Lawn. “In a moment where sports, experiences, and memories have grown increasingly unattainable for working people,” Mamdani said, “we will make this viewing party 100% free.”

Standing nearby was FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who last month defended the exorbitant costs of the world’s most prestigious sporting event and blamed them on “market rates” that apply in the U.S.

“We have to look at the market—we are in the market in which entertainment is the most developed in the world, so we have to apply market rates,” Infantino said at the Milken conference.

His comments mirror what some economists have pointed to as driving the World Cup’s pricing crisis, saying it’s a market deliberately designed—by FIFA, with full knowledge of the consequences—to generate revenue at every stage of a fan’s increasingly expensive journey to a seat. By offering the watch party to soccer fans who otherwi...