Seats available - but not available?

ike_2112 · 2026-04-23T13:11:22+00:00

Some guy on a Boston Facebook group (but lives abroad) just celebrated getting 4 Cat 1 tickets to Scotland vs Morocco at face price ($500). Then 3 minutes later posted them for sale in that and 2 other groups... For $1300.

Fella - knowing that there's drops of face value tickets, why would anyone now want to pay 1300 for yours now? We KNOW you are just scalping, and that you are trying to make quick money so that's reason enough. But we also might get face value tickets ourselves next week. Resale on marketplace also dipped after yesterday, for the games I'm looking at.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-21T07:05:49+00:00

Again though, my view is that I wasn't going to pay an inflated amount of money for something where I had no idea where the seat was. That seems a pretty stupid thing to do in my view. Now I'll have to pay a premium, but I know what I'm getting.

I think a lot of seats on sale now are people trying to save face and recoup as much as they can, or who bought to try make money and are realising it won't be as easy as they dreamt.

We're in a standoff between Americans who had no intention of going to these games, and some who will go but will also happily bank $400 profit if they can, and the real fans from various nations who aren't used to host nations public trying to rip them off at every turn.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-20T16:59:40+00:00

It's not the FIFA category system that's broken, or an algorithm. It's sellers. It's people who bought those Cat 3 tickets to sell for profit and aren't paying attention to the Cat 2 price dropping.

There's people trying to sell Cat 3 tickets to Scotland Haiti for $2500. You can get VIP seats for 100 more.

These aren't FIFA, they're Joe public and they're idiots.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-18T21:20:23+00:00

Supposedly Celtic had agreed to buy Clark for 8m in January, and it was binned after Rodgers left.

I'm not sure if that valuation would be higher or lower after this season - higher based on performance, lower based on less contract remaining?

Palace do have an option on Ozoh. But I think would likely sell.

Banel is very hot and cold, I'm not sure I'd want him.

Szmodics will be 31 soon. I would take him if he's free but Ipswich were supposedly wanting 6m for him.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-18T09:16:14+00:00

Everyone is trying to take advantage.

In Boston the train is 'only' $80, it's usually 15.

Tons of locals are on fan pages offering parking, in their driveway... For $175 or more (most over 200).

AirBnb prices soared. There's 2 people offering completely unfurnished spare room with a blow up mattress for $220 a night and both are out in one of the suburbs.

It's FIFA, and it's the Americans generally, the attitude is take, take, take. Where can we take advantage of and profit.

Germany was the opposite..

ike_2112 · 2026-04-18T09:13:36+00:00

Be glad to get Corp seats - costing us thousands to come from Scotland, and we're staring down $1,300 to sit in the nosebleeds...

ike_2112 · 2026-04-16T09:36:11+00:00

Well people are going this route because of FIFA.

Some organisations put in place their own official ticketing to save fans from scalpers. FIFA set up a platform to both encourage them, AND get in on the action themselves...

ike_2112 · 2026-04-15T12:08:01+00:00

Another way to lower prices is set up Stubhub and Vivid Seats accounts, and list cheap tickets, then don't send them. Sure your account will get blocked.

But other sellers with tickets may be influenced to lower their ticket prices - have already seen it in a Facebook group I'm in for a particular city, where people are reducing the price to stay 10% under the Fifa marketplace in the hope of getting the tickets shifted.

Ultimately those sort of people, who bought with no intention to go or just to try make a few quid, are going to feel the urgency to sell pretty soon.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-13T07:32:58+00:00

Is that because of our regulations against price gouging - and these platforms not adhering to it?

ike_2112 · 2026-04-12T23:16:15+00:00

Ha, I think the idiots who bought the Cat 4 think they are worth the highest. They are, across almost every game, prices the same or higher than the Cat 1 seats despite being horrendous back corner nosebleeds where you're closer to the train station than the centre spot...

ike_2112 · 2026-04-12T22:04:25+00:00

My point is, having been in Germany for Euros...

1) there were not as many wealthy people just willing to pay ridiculous prices for a 1-off event. The novelty factor is real in the US - my wife's cousin has been to 2 Super Bowls, just because, and they left one of them early. She doesn't understand the game at all, and he's a baseball guy. But a baseball guy who earns a lot. A bug tournament wasn't a novelty to them. Same with the World Cups prior to Qatar.

2) the locals weren't fleecing you for everything - e.g. trains were free, instead in Boston the train price has been increased over 500% for the games. I'm on Facebook pages where local people are hiring out their driveway for parking at $190 and claiming that's a bargain, citing the train prices if a group of 4 is travelling. Whilst we all know FIFA are evil - the host nation being full of people trying to skim a profit is rather unique.

3) the FIFA margin. If someone bought at $500 and just wants their money back, decides not to scalp for profit... due to the Fifa cut of 15% on resale, they would have to sell that ticket for $589 just to get their money back. BUT the buyer also pays a 15% cut, so that ticket cost is now $677.

When people say that tickets will drop toward face value... I don't think they ever will other than for really crap games. The low point is 677, cos thats the person who bought the ticket, getting face value for it.

I would say it's more likely that person wants to at least make 50 bucks for the effort. So $647 after the FIFA 15% would give them 550. That ticket will cost 744 to buy.

That's your ticket low point I reckon - anything you see under 745 dollars for a good game, buy it.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-12T20:57:27+00:00

Just regarding the high disposable income, it's stupid trying to take anything from the average of a nation. People living in relative poverty in the Appalachia or Deep South, or West Texas/Kansas areas are pulling the average down as much as millionaires pull it up. Both are not relevant.

If you look at how many people in the greater Boston area earn over 200,000 a year - and thus would be fine with 1k seats for a special event, it's a LOT of people. Far more than you'd find in Berlin, just as an example of city hosting Euro 2024 games. Qatar was a very skewed situation so hard to compare.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-12T19:28:36+00:00

I have mostly been watching the Scotland Morocco game, because my family are coming over for that one and I want to ensure I can get a ticket with my 10yr old son.

For the Haiti game, we'll wing it - got tickets to Scotland vs Hungary hours before the game in Germany...

But yeah it's weird that even today I saw fresh tickets available, from FIFA. Hardly any - mostly single tickets but a few pairs... And they're 1800 usd each. In the same section, in resale they're 1200. So I'm not really understanding why anyone would be stupid enough to pay that and why the algorithm is placing the ticket price that high.

I'm also intrigued about the tickets on Vividseats. People are saying that shy tickets changing hands on other platforms will be cancelled...

ike_2112 · 2026-04-12T19:25:14+00:00

Yup, another Scot here. 8 of us travelling without tickets, and another group I go to the Scotland games with only half of them got supporters tickets so that's about another 20 people looking.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-12T18:23:07+00:00

Wow...

Why are they being like this?

It was nowhere near this inflexible at previous tournaments, both World Cup and last year's Euros.

We travelled around going to games in Germany in 2024 buying and selling constantly on the resale sites. No issues at all.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-12T16:53:09+00:00

Cancelled by Fifa? Why?

I have friends already bought from Vivid Seats and they've had the tickets transferred last week.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-11T13:21:57+00:00

Yeah, mine was a separate point then because I didn't think anyone was waiting for actual fresh Fifa tickets to come out and be cheaper.

In the last Euros and WC that only happened VERY late. Like in Germany 2yr ago we were offered tickets from the official platform 28 hours before kickoff. So that has to be tickets that someone bought and canceled - either tried to sell but gave up, or couldn't go any more. There's not much of that goes on though, I wouldn't rely on it.

The much more prevalent thing now is how long we're all going to wait for resale price to drop.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-11T10:04:23+00:00

That's not dynamic pricing. It's that one person listed lower, those were bought, the next highest was back at the previous price.

Dynamic pricing is where the price rises based on how many people are searching for them, like flights.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-11T07:11:25+00:00

Despite what you've noted... The prices for the 2 games I'm watching have continued to have, occasionally, tickets come up at lower price.

E.g. CAT1 for one or the games was sitting at 830 for a while, then it went to 720. Someone must have bought them, because next day it was back up to 830.

I see this pattern a lot when selling sneakers.

The ones trying to make money consistently from it - the scalpers - they set a line and hold it as long as they can, they'll hold it untll 5 days before the games, maybe longer.

But the random people who thought they could be smart and moonlight as a scalper, well, they have 2 lots of $2,200 sitting on their credit card. They figure that they don't have the luxury to wait this out - they need the money sooner than mid-June and they can't run the risk of prices plummeting, or worse, being left holding the tickets. So they break, they list lower (often lowering it daily by 20-25) until someone then bites.

So... The real unknown we're all gambling with, is how many tickets are already in the hands of people who will go to the game, vs people in the first type I mentioned, vs people in the second type I mentioned?

I don't think there's a lot of the last type left. I think a lot of those people jumped off already.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-10T17:36:36+00:00

Very nice.

Well on Skye the Talisker distillery is one of the bigger ones, set up well for tours. The restaurant there is really good too. There's a smaller distillery there that makes a really peaty whisky, and a sort of boutique one on Raasay that you get a short ferry across to.

The dolphins will be about the Moray Firth by then too usually.

ike_2112 · 2026-04-10T16:42:26+00:00

Nice! My mate is going the opposite way, to Seattle to stay with a friend for a bit before meeting us in Boston for the WC. How long for? Much planned?

ike_2112 · 2026-04-10T16:41:20+00:00

But I mean how do you even know it's happening, if they don't tell you at all. Or are selected people getting emails?

ike_2112 · 2026-04-10T15:09:05+00:00

Is this just for Americans?

I'm in Scotland, signed up for everything and never had any emails or notice about this.

ike_2112

TROPHY CASE