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I wanted to believe. Leading up to this summer's World Cup, hotel bookings were reportedly lower than expected, and tons of match tickets remained either unsold or available on the resale market.
While wave after wave of official ticket releases from FIFA passed with prices consistently too high to be considered a reasonable purchase, I held out hope for a last-minute deal on at least one group-stage match at NY/NJ Stadium over in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
A Monday night Norway vs Senegal match with an 8:00 pm local start time, perhaps? You would think that match-up wouldn't be subject to the same built-in levels of price inflation that accompanied the Brazil, France, Germany, or England matches. You would think that, but you'd be wrong, because the get-in price remains around $900 and has risen by nearly 70% during the first week of the World Cup.
That's according to the ticket price tracking platform TicketData, which monitors both official FIFA ticket inventory and the situation across the secondary resale market. A survey of the ticket market since the tournament began paints a less-than-pretty picture for anyone who thought they might find a last-second World Cup ticket deal.
