# Case File — Video 8: FIFA World Cup 2026 Ticket Pricing Scandal

Working title (draft, not locked): **"FIFA Promised You a $1,550 Ticket. Then Charged You $32,970."**
Status: research locked, creator-clip approach decided, ready to script
— see "Decision (locked 2026-07-11)" below for the recreation approach
Lane: Primary Beat — live, breaking, multi-jurisdiction government
investigation already underway; strongest "just happened" trigger of any
video to date (tournament is in progress as of this research, 2026-07-11)
Target format: 8-12 min deep dive

## Why this is the freshest topic yet

The tournament runs June 11-July 19, 2026 — it is happening *right now*.
Every thread below is either still unfolding or was reported within the
last 5-6 weeks, several within the last 3 days. This is a meaningfully
different risk profile than prior videos: we are reporting on a live,
moving story, not a closed or mostly-resolved one. Script every dollar
figure and every investigation's status as "as of this recording,"
explicitly — this could keep moving before or after publish.

## The core thesis

FIFA restructured the 2026 World Cup so that it — not the host cities,
not the national federations — controls essentially all tournament
revenue (media rights, sponsorship, ticketing, hospitality, merchandise),
while host cities and their taxpayers absorb the costs (security,
infrastructure, logistics). On top of that structural shift, FIFA
introduced algorithmic "dynamic pricing" for the first time in World Cup
history, and multiple state attorneys general are now formally
investigating whether that pricing was designed — not just responsive —
to inflate costs and mislead fans who bought early. This is not a story
about whether soccer tickets are expensive. It's a "who actually
profits, and who's left holding the bill" story — exactly the NLR lane.

## The bait-and-switch, with real numbers at each stage

Track these as distinct stages — do not average or blur them together
on screen, the same way Video 7 kept $9B/$2.3B/$1.4B distinct:

1. **The original promise (2023 bid documents)**: when the US/Canada/
   Mexico bid was submitted, organizers said a seat at the final would
   cost a maximum of **$1,550**.
2. **Face value at initial on-sale**: Category 1 final tickets launched
   at **$2,030-$6,730**.
3. **By April 2026**: the cheapest standard final ticket had reached
   **$5,785**; the same Category 1 tier that launched at $6,730 now cost
   **$10,990**.
4. **By early May 2026**: FIFA's own dynamic-pricing system had
   **tripled its best available final tickets to $32,970** — a fact
   confirmed by Fortune's reporting on FIFA's own listed prices, not a
   resale-market outlier.
5. **Separately, on the resale/hospitality market**: some Final
   hospitality packages were listed as high as **~$2.3 million each**
   (this is what Infantino was responding to with the "hot dog and Coke"
   line — see below). **Keep this figure clearly separate from #4** — one
   is FIFA's own official dynamic price, the other is an extreme
   resale/hospitality-package outlier. Conflating them overstates the
   claim.
- Sources: [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48947095/2026-fifa-world-cup-sticker-shock-ugly-cost-beautiful-game-grand-event), [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/06/09/world-cup-fifa-ticket-prices-hidden-markets/), [The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/the-ticket-price-fiasco-for-the-mens-fifa-world-cup-has-been-a-spectacular-own-goal-282532), [SI](https://www.si.com/soccer/fifa-president-ridicules-2026-world-cup-ticket-price-backlash-hot-dog-promise)

## The "not just responding to demand" evidence

- FIFA raised prices on **more than 90 of the 104 matches** between
  October 2025 and April 2026, with the three main ticket categories
  rising **on average 34%** — per NY/NJ's own subpoena language, drawn
  from press reporting they cite directly.
- A Boston University economics professor examining public seat maps
  found **large, contiguous blocks of seats** suddenly appearing on the
  official resale market — a pattern inconsistent with ordinary fan or
  small-scale scalper resale (which produces scattered singles/pairs),
  and more consistent with bulk inventory being held back and released
  strategically. **This is an economist's pattern-observation, not a
  proven allegation — script it as "an economist flagged a pattern,"
  not as a confirmed finding.**
- FIFA controls the primary inventory, the release schedule, *and* the
  official resale platform where it collects fees on every secondary
  sale — the same entity sets the game, plays the game, and takes a cut
  of every re-trade. Source: [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/06/09/world-cup-fifa-ticket-prices-hidden-markets/)

## The "Front Category" reassignment mechanism (a real, named incident)

FIFA created new premium "Front Category" seating zones **after** many
fans had already purchased tickets — pulling the best seats in each
existing category into a new, separately-sold tier. Fans who bought
before the new zones existed were bumped to worse seats (further from
the field, behind goals) without being offered the new tier first.

- **Named, on-record example**: a father who purchased four Front
  Category 1 tickets for Match 74 (Round of 32, Gillette Stadium,
  Boston, June 29) for **$7,440 total**, during FIFA's "Last-Minute
  Sales Phase." His seats were reassigned — three sections further from
  midfield, moved from Row 1 to Row 3 — with no notice or choice offered.
  FIFA's stated reason was a "restricted visibility" review that
  identified an obstruction — but the review happened only *after* the
  tickets were sold, and it's unclear why the obstruction wasn't flagged
  at purchase. FIFA only reversed the reassignment after Newsweek
  contacted them for comment. **This "only fixed once a reporter called"
  detail is worth keeping on screen — it's evidence of no functioning
  internal correction process, not just one clerical error.**
  Source: [Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/dad-paid-dream-world-cup-front-row-seats-then-fifa-moved-them-12049784)
- This exact mechanism — new premium zones carved out post-sale — is one
  of the two specific practices named in the NY/NJ attorneys general
  subpoena (see below).

## The government investigation (this is the public record)

- **New York AG Letitia James + New Jersey AG Jennifer Davenport**
  issued a **joint subpoena to FIFA on May 27, 2026** — the broadest
  consumer-protection action ever aimed at a World Cup. Two specific
  allegation tracks:
  1. **Misleading seat locations** — the Front Category reassignment
     practice described above.
  2. **Price manipulation** — whether FIFA's phased ticket-release
     schedule was designed to artificially inflate prices, not just
     respond to demand.
  Scope explicitly includes MetLife Stadium (NJ), which hosts 8 matches
  including the **July 19, 2026 Final**.
  Sources: [NY AG press release](https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-and-attorney-general-davenport-subpoena-fifa-over-world), [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/27/business/world-cup-tickets-new-york-new-jersey-subpoena), [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48885837/new-jersey-new-york-subpoena-20926-fifa-world-cup-tickets)
- **California AG Rob Bonta** sent a separate information request.
- **Texas AG Ken Paxton** opened a parallel probe under the Texas
  Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
- **British Columbia, Canada** launched a separate provincial probe
  specifically into **StubHub's** resale practices around World Cup
  tickets. Source: [CBC](https://www.cbc.ca/news/investigates/bc-stubhub-investigation-world-cup-resale-tickets-9.7250888)
- **Football Supporters Europe + Euroconsumers** filed a formal
  complaint with the **European Commission** alleging monopoly abuse.
- **Historical echo, use carefully**: DOJ indicted FIFA officials for
  racketeering ten years ago (the 2015 FIFA corruption case). This is a
  useful one-line "this isn't FIFA's first brush with US law enforcement
  over money" beat, not a claim that the current ticket investigation is
  the same kind of case — keep the distinction explicit on screen.
  Source: [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/fifa-doj-indictment-world-cup-ticket-prices-ag-2026/)

## FIFA's own defense (include it — this is a contested, unresolved story)

- Infantino, on the pricing: *"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."* And: *"You cannot go to watch in
  the U.S. a college game... for less than $300, and this is the World
  Cup."*
- Infantino's viral "hot dog" line, responding to the ~$2.3M hospitality
  package figure: *"If somebody buys a ticket for the final for $2
  million, I will personally bring him a hot dog and a Coke to make sure
  that he has a great experience."* Widely read as tone-deaf; this is a
  legitimate, on-record quote and a strong cold-open device, but script
  it as what it is — FIFA's own leadership dismissing a genuine
  consumer-protection question with a joke, not a "gotcha" edit.
- FIFA has also said high resale listings don't mean tickets actually
  cost that much, and nobody has to buy at the top of the resale market.
- Economists dispute the "market rate" framing directly: FIFA doesn't
  passively observe a market, it **designs and controls** the primary
  release schedule and the only official resale channel — it isn't
  discovering a price, it's setting one, at every stage, while collecting
  a fee at every stage too.
  Sources: [SI](https://www.si.com/soccer/fifa-president-ridicules-2026-world-cup-ticket-price-backlash-hot-dog-promise), [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/06/09/world-cup-fifa-ticket-prices-hidden-markets/)

## Who actually pays: the host-city side of the ledger

- Under the 2026 restructuring, FIFA — not national federations — deals
  directly with host cities and **controls essentially all tournament
  revenue** (media rights, sponsorship, ticketing, hospitality,
  merchandise). Host cities and states control only the **costs**.
- Each of the 11 US host cities is expected to shoulder **$100-200
  million** in security, infrastructure, and logistics costs.
- **FEMA awarded $625 million in security funding** across the 11 host
  cities — averaging well under what a single city's costs alone can
  run, and this funding was reportedly still being lobbied for late in
  the process.
- Collective host-city shortfall estimated at **more than $250 million**.
- **Historical pattern, not unique to 2026**: University of Toronto
  research found 12 of the last 14 World Cups resulted in net economic
  losses for host cities.
- **Reconcile carefully before scripting**: one source estimates FIFA's
  total take at **$8.9 billion**; a separate FIFA-cycle revenue
  projection puts total tournament-cycle revenue at **$13 billion**
  (ticketing/hospitality ~$3B, up from a pre-cycle $950M projection;
  broadcast ~$4.3B; sponsorship ~$3.8B). These are not the same
  denominator — one appears to be FIFA's direct World-Cup-specific take,
  the other the full 4-year cycle including Club World Cup and other
  events. **Do not present these as two different numbers for the same
  thing on screen** — pick one clearly-labeled figure per claim.
  Sources: [Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/world-cup-2026-host-cities-losses-12066163), [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/06/19/fifa-biggest-payday-world-cup-history-host-cities-foot-bill/), [ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/world-cup-2026-host-cities-revenue-houston)
- **Minor, don't overweight**: FIFA President Infantino's own 2025
  compensation reached **$6 million** (bonus rose from $2M to $3M after
  the Club World Cup's launch). This is a real, sourced figure but small
  relative to the billions above — use as a single supporting data
  point, not a "here's where the money really went" centerpiece; the
  real story is structural (FIFA vs. host cities), not one executive's
  salary.
  Source: FIFA 2025 financial report, as reported by [HITC](https://www.hitc.com/how-fifa-will-spend-record-breaking-13bn-world-cup-revenue/)

## The concession/concourse price angle (the most universally relatable beat)

- Food and beverage at each venue is run by that venue's **existing,
  pre-tournament concession operator** — FIFA and its hospitality
  partner On Location did not standardize pricing across venues, so
  prices vary by city/venue and generally track that venue's normal
  event pricing.
- **No public disclosure of how concession revenue splits** between
  FIFA, venue operators, and concessionaires — flag this as a real,
  current information gap, not a fact we're withholding.
- Two real, named, viral consumer moments (see "Viral creator content"
  below): a TikToker's $9 Coke/$7 water video, and an ESPN reporter's
  $52.98 receipt for a small snack at MetLife Stadium.

## The empty-seats controversy (the "do the math" beat)

- On the tournament's opening day, South Korea vs. Czechia (Guadalajara)
  played in front of large visibly empty sections — despite Infantino
  previously claiming "unprecedented" demand (500+ million booking
  requests recorded across the whole ticket process).
- FIFA's own attendance figure for that match: **44,985**, against a
  stadium capacity of **45,664** — a claimed shortfall of only 679 seats
  from a sellout, a number hard to reconcile with the visibly empty
  sections shown on broadcast. FIFA's explanation: fans were in
  concourses, not that tickets went unsold.
- Independently, **reports two days before the tournament opened found
  180,000 unsold tickets** tournament-wide.
- FIFA responded mid-tournament by **quietly cutting prices across all
  104 matches** and **returning 70% of its block-booked hotel rooms**
  due to low demand — a real, concrete action that reads as an implicit
  admission the original pricing overshot demand.
  Sources: [Bored Panda/TikTok compilation](https://www.boredpanda.com/fifa-make-desperate-excuse-for-world-cup-empty-seats-embarrassment/), [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2026/05/28/nx-s1-5836514/2026-world-cup-fifa-ticket-prices)

### The honest counter-narrative (real, independent, corroborates FIFA's own explanation)

User supplied two real Reddit screenshots (2026-07-11, `~/Downloads/`)
that are part of the same public conversation and complicate the "empty
seats" framing above — worth including, not omitting, since they push
back on our own thesis with a real, independently-sourced point:

- **u/Chaz_wazzers** (12 upvotes): "The only empty seats are the
  expensive seats after half-time while they are still in line for a hot
  dog and a beer. The empty seats look terrible on TV but they fill up
  eventually and they aren't 'unsold' seats."
- **u/Fast_Body6219** (5 upvotes): "i been watching every match i can and
  the stadiums look packed to me, maybe its just the camera angles or
  something but i dont see it."
- **u/Notsoobvioususer** (-2 upvotes, the outlier of the three): "That's
  capitalism for you. FIFA and its outrageous ticket prices robbed me my
  life long dream of attending one single World Cup game... all games
  were either sold out or got near of being sold out."

**Why this matters editorially**: the first two comments independently
corroborate FIFA's own official explanation (fans in concourses, not
unsold tickets) — from ordinary people with no reason to defend FIFA,
not FIFA's PR department. That's a real, honest complication to the
"do the math" beat above, not just FIFA spin. **Do not resolve this by
picking a side on whether the seats were literally empty or not** — the
honest move is to acknowledge the dispute is genuinely unresolved from
outside evidence, then pivot to the throughline that isn't in dispute:
regardless of how full the stadium actually was on a given day, the
price required to be one of the people in it climbed far past what was
promised. Locked closing line for this beat, per user direction
2026-07-11: *"Whether seats are full or unsold, the fact remains: FIFA
World Cup tickets — like a lot of high-revenue sports right now — aren't
really a participation sport for the everyman anymore."*

**On-screen treatment**: same recreation approach as the other viral
content — an on-brand "post card" graphic quoting the two corroborating
comments (Chaz_wazzers, Fast_Body6219) with username and upvote count,
not the actual Reddit screenshot images. Consistent with the locked
decision under "Viral creator content" below.

## Viral creator content — real people, already trending, candidates for on-screen shoutout

Per the user's explicit direction: this video should feature real clips
from ordinary creators who are already being widely re-shared, credited
by name, not just cited as "TikTok users." Two strong, verified
candidates found this session — **both need the go-ahead described in
"What we need from you" below before use**:

- **Tori Samone Golden, @lifewithtorisamone** (TikTok, Virginia) — video
  breaking down FIFA's original $60 advertised starting price vs. the
  $167 cheapest listing she found at time of posting (~278% increase,
  she describes it as "almost 300%"), and separately calling out FIFA's
  30% total resale commission. **207,000+ views** at time of this
  research.
  Source: [We Got This Covered](https://wegotthiscovered.com/social-media/tiktok-creator-calls-out-fifa-over-world-cup-ticket-prices-jumping-from-60-to-167-and-fifa-has-now-responded-to-the-claims/)
- **@st4cka** (TikTok) — filmed a concession vendor's posted prices at a
  World Cup match ($9 Coca-Cola, $7 bottled water), captioned
  "Companies should not be allowed to infinitely price-gouge customers
  who attend their events." **141,000+ views** at time of this research.
  **Important caveat, confirmed via direct fetch of the source article
  2026-07-11: the Daily Dot's own reporting explicitly states it "could
  not independently verify the venue shown, the specific FIFA match, or
  the accuracy of the prices depicted."** This is a real, viral, widely-
  discussed video — genuinely part of the public conversation — but the
  $9/$7 figures are an unverified creator claim, not a confirmed fact,
  even by the outlet that covered it. **Do not build a "receipt
  recreation" asserting these numbers as fact.** If referenced at all,
  frame it explicitly as "a viral video claimed this — even the outlet
  covering it couldn't verify the venue or the prices," which is itself
  an honest, on-brand beat about how fast an unverified number can travel.
  Source: [Daily Dot](https://dailydot.com/tiktoker-exposed-beverage-prices-at-fifa-world-cup)
- **ESPN's own reporting** (not a creator clip — cite the outlet, not
  the reporter's face/likeness, consistent with how every other outlet
  citation in this project works) — a **$52.98** receipt for a small
  salad, bottled water, a croissant, and a chicken breast at MetLife
  Stadium ahead of the Brazil-Morocco group match, itemized and reported
  directly by ESPN. **This is the better-sourced concession-pricing
  figure — fully verified by the outlet itself, not a claim awaiting
  verification. Use this one for the receipt recreation, not @st4cka's.**
  Source: [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/48947095/2026-fifa-world-cup-sticker-shock-ugly-cost-beautiful-game-grand-event)
- Broader phenomenon, not yet tied to one specific named creator: viral
  empty-seat compilation content, including at least one Daily Mail
  Sport-branded TikTok clip of the Guadalajara empty sections (this one
  is a press-outlet account, not an ordinary creator — different
  clearance profile, see below).

## Numbers table (for on-screen graphics)

| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Original promised max final ticket price (2023 bid) | $1,550 | ESPN |
| Face-value Category 1 final ticket at launch | $2,030-$6,730 | Fortune |
| Cheapest final ticket, April 2026 | $5,785 | ESPN |
| Category 1 final ticket, April 2026 | $10,990 | ESPN |
| FIFA's own best available final ticket, early May 2026 | $32,970 | Fortune |
| Extreme resale/hospitality Final package listing | ~$2.3M | SI |
| Matches with price increases, Oct 2025-Apr 2026 | 90+ of 104 | NY AG subpoena |
| Average price increase across 3 main categories | 34% | NY AG subpoena |
| FIFA's combined resale commission (buyer + seller) | 30% (15%+15%) | Fortune |
| Unsold tickets, 2 days before tournament opened | 180,000 | NPR |
| Guadalajara opening-day claimed attendance vs. capacity | 44,985 / 45,664 | FIFA official figures |
| Host cities affected by security/infrastructure costs | 11 US cities | Newsweek/Fortune |
| Per-city security/infrastructure cost estimate | $100-200M | Fortune |
| FEMA security funding across all 11 host cities | $625M | Newsweek |
| Estimated collective host-city budget shortfall | $250M+ | Newsweek |
| World Cups (of last 14) resulting in host-city net losses | 12 | University of Toronto (via Newsweek) |
| Infantino 2025 total compensation | $6M | FIFA 2025 financial report |
| Front Category reassignment example — total paid | $7,440 (4 tickets) | Newsweek |

## Decision (locked 2026-07-11): recreation approach, not scraped clips

User's first instinct was "screenshot and credit the @" (what a lot of
the internet does) — pushed back on that specifically: attribution
solves plagiarism, not copyright, and it doesn't matter whether the
account is a monetized personality or an anonymous poster, they still
hold copyright in their own screenshot the moment they take it. Also
flagged a practical constraint: no tool in this pipeline can actually
download media off TikTok/X.

**Locked approach**: AI-generated recreations of the verified underlying
numbers (a receipt, a ticket stub), explicitly labeled on screen as a
recreation — same precedent as Video A's
`digital_gateway_legal_notice_recreation.png`. Real creators are still
named and credited by handle/account for the claim they made (this is
commentary/reporting on what they said, not reproducing their image),
but no actual photographed/screenshotted pixels of theirs are used.
User's own added constraint: avoid any creator whose face/likeness has
commercial value tied to it (ruled out using Eddie Dove's personal video/
image for this reason — his verified *reported figure* is still fine to
cite as ESPN's own journalism, same as any other outlet fact).

**Assets built (2026-07-11)**, both via `gemini_generate_images.py`,
in `03_broll_assets/`:
1. `TicketStub_Recreation_FrontCategory1_Match74.png` — Front Category 1,
   Match 74, Gillette Stadium, June 29 2026, $1,860.00 — fully verified
   via Newsweek's own reporting, including FIFA's response. Generic
   soccer-ball icon only, no FIFA logo/emblem (trademark caution, same as
   the FRAM/Trico logo restriction on Video 7).
2. `Receipt_Recreation_MetLifeStadium.png` — MetLife Stadium, salad +
   bottled water + croissant + chicken breast, $52.98 total — fully
   verified via ESPN's own reporting. Took 2 regenerations: v1 and v2
   both misspelled "Concessions" as "Consessions" (a real, recurring
   text-rendering weakness of the image model on that specific word) —
   fixed by rewording the header to "Food & Drink" instead of fighting
   the misspelling directly.
3. **Not built**: a recreation of @st4cka's $9 Coke/$7 water claim — the
   source outlet itself couldn't verify it (see caveat above). May still
   reference the video's existence/view count as a "here's what's going
   viral" beat, but not recreate its numbers as fact.

**Mandatory on-screen treatment for both recreations** (same precedent
as Video A's legal-notice recreation): caption each one clearly as a
recreation/illustration, not a real photo — e.g. "RECREATION — based on
verified reporting by [Newsweek/ESPN]," visible for the full duration
either is on screen.

None of these are "wrong" — they're a genuine tradeoff between risk,
turnaround speed, and whether "shoutout" needs to mean "their actual
video plays" versus "we clearly show and credit exactly what they said
and how many people saw it." Let me know which way to go and I'll build
the shotlist accordingly.

## Open verification items (do not fabricate — confirm before scripting)

- **This is a live story.** Confirm the status of all four state AG
  investigations, the BC/StubHub probe, and the EU Commission complaint
  immediately before recording — any of them could resolve, expand, or
  get dropped before this ships.
- **The $8.9B vs $13B FIFA revenue figures need one clean reconciliation
  pass** before a specific number goes on screen — see the note above.
- **Verify view counts on the two TikTok clips again at scripting time**
  — both were climbing at time of this research and will likely be
  higher by production.
- **The BU economist's "contiguous seat blocks" observation is a
  pattern flag, not a proven finding** — do not upgrade it to "FIFA was
  caught holding back tickets" without a firmer source.
- **Host-city shortfall figures ($100-200M/city, $250M+ collective) are
  estimates from press reporting**, not confirmed municipal budget
  documents — pull an actual city budget filing if a precise number is
  needed on screen for a specific host city.
