The Brief

The first opportunity to score regular tickets for the 2026 World Cup is on Wednesday. But be warned: Tickets may not be easy to get — and they likely won't be cheap.

Demand for the popular men's tournament is expected to soar even higher once the tournament kicks off across the United States, Mexico and Canada in June.

FIFA, the organization behind the World Cup, is also upending the way it sells tickets for its flagship tournament, which could compound the challenges of scoring them.

Most prominently, FIFA is set to unveil a controversial pricing system: They say it's not the same as dynamic pricing — but prices will adjust based on demand.

Here's what to know about ticket sales for the World Cup.

There will be multiple sales dates for tickets

The first window to get tickets will open on Sept. 10 and end on Sept. 19 — but only for eligible VISA cardholders. And they must first register their interest with FIFA. And people won't be able to actually buy tickets then.

According to information provided by FIFA, those who apply will be drawn into a lottery. If successful, they will be provided with a specific date and time slot to buy tickets starting on Oct. 1.

Those who are selected have the chance to buy tickets for any of the 104 games that will held in all three countries next year — including the final. Buyers just won't know who's actually playing in them, since the draw won't be held until Dec. 5.

Venue-specific ticket packages, meaning tickets to a handful of games in a specific host city like Boston or Mexico City, will also be available. In addition, spectators can buy tickets that are specific to a national team, but only for the three group games that each team will play.

Other opportunities to buy tickets will follow, including in late October, after the group draw, and next year.

FIFA will also operate a resale platform for ticket holders who no longer want to attend a match, as it has in previous tournaments.

Tickets will start at $60 per game — with a big catch

FIFA has touted that some group-stage tickets will start at $60, saying that will offer "an accessible entry point to the tournament." Still, the association notes that the "most exclusive" tickets could reach up to $6,730 for the final.

But what they are not touting so loudly is that the organization will also implement pricing that will fluctuate based on demand, a first for the World Cup.

It's not dynamic pricing per se; they're calling it "variable pricing." But the differences between the two can be hazy.

Aerial view of Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Mexico, which will host the opening game of the 2026 World Cup on June 11.

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Heimo Schirgi, the FIFA World Cup 26 Chief Operating Officer, says variable pricing means that "how the prices are adjusted are not as steep and are more balanced across the different phases."

A FIFA official further told NPR that pricing won't be set by "automated algorithms," but will be guided by a team of people who will be regularly "monitoring and making adjustments in real time" to ticket prices based on supply and demand — which suggests that FIFA officials can ultimately determine how high they are willing to let prices go. (The official declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media in an official capacity.)

FIFA has justified its decision by saying it's simply adapting to the U.S. and Canadian markets, where professional teams regularly use the controversial sales practice of adjusting tickets based on demand, just as airlines or hotels do.

FIFA's "variable pricing" will apply from the actual start of the sales window in October, which means that the $60 "accessible entry point" could quickly rise, depending on how aggressive the organization will be with pricing.

Prices adjusted to demand could also be implemented on FIFA's planned resale platform in the U.S. and Canada, though FIFA has not given exact details.

However, in Mexico, the resale platform will operate as an exchange platform, meaning buyers can receive up to the amount they spent buying a ticket from FIFA — and no more. That's the way FIFA had operated its resale platforms in the past.

Demand for the 2026 World Cup is likely to be huge

Of course, adjusting pricing based on demand doesn't necessarily mean prices will rise higher. At the FIFA Club World Cup — a tournament held in the U.S. this year — pricing actually dropped for a number of games because demand was lower than anticipated.

But the World Cup is far bigger and more established than the Club World Cup. FIFA has previously said it is expecting over 5 million people to attend next year's edition.

That would shatter the previous record from 1994, the last time the U.S. hosted, attracting over 3.5 million spectators.

Brazilian players celebrate their victory over Italy in a penalty shootout at the 1994 World Cup final in Pasadena, Calif., on July 17, 1994, as then Vice President Al Gore looks on.

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That's in part a function of the vastly expanded tournament, which will now consist of 48 teams, more than the 32 that participated in the previous World Cup in Qatar. The 2026 World Cup will also be held in three countries and staged in venues such as MetLife Stadium, which has a capacity of over 80,000.

Nonetheless, demand will likely be higher than supply, and getting tickets may prove difficult.

During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, FIFA said it received over 23 million requests for about 3.4 million available tickets, meaning buyers who wanted to score tickets had a success rate of only about 15%.

There are other ways to get tickets — including hospitality and a "right to buy" system

For those who do not want the uncertainty of trying to buy regular seats during a sales window, there is another way to attend — but it will cost you.

They're called "hospitality tickets," and these premium tickets are well known to American fans. They give the ticketholder access to a reserved seating area, such as a box, along with a variety of beverages and food.

But they are pricey. Hospitality tickets have already been on sale since earlier this year, including for individual games and packages that at one point reached $73,200.

Prices have also fluctuated through the year based on demand. Right now, the cheapest hospitality ticket for a single game is listed at $1,350.

FIFA has also introduced a new ticket sales method called "right to buys," or RTBs. These offer buyers a guaranteed opportunity to buy tickets for specific games, including the final. To get one, fans have to buy digital cards which FIFA releases, or "drops," periodically. They're kind of like electronic baseball cards; they typically contain a scene or video from a previous World Cup game.

Prices range from the hundreds of dollars for guaranteed opportunities to buy playoff games down to cheaper "surprise packs" that may or may not contain an RTB. That doesn't even factor in the actual price of the ticket, which buyers will need to pay when FIFA makes them available.

FIFA even runs a marketplace where RTB owners can buy and sell these opportunities.

Lionel Messi lifts the FIFA World Cup trophy after defeating France in a penalty shootout in Lusail City, Qatar, on Dec. 18, 2022.

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It may be the most profitable World Cup tournament ever

The combination of variable pricing and more games will likely lead to the most profitable World Cup tournament ever.

Bloomberg Intelligence estimates FIFA could rake in a record $4.4 billion, not only from general sales tickets but also by leaning heavily on hospitality seats. Such a haul would also mark a 378% surge from the last men's tournament in Qatar, according to equity research analyst Kevin Near, reflecting in part the expanded tournament with 104 matches and 48 national teams.

"These stadiums are massive, they have huge occupancy," Near says. "And because there has been such a focus now for a little while on building out premium and luxury spaces, that's where you're going to see a lot of those dollars come from."

FIFA, however, is particularly sensitive to criticism that it's just seeking profits, saying the vast majority of the money it raises from its tournaments is intended to be distributed across its 211 member associations to help support the growth of soccer worldwide.

"As part of that mission, which we take very seriously, we're looking at optimizing the revenue, but also optimizing attendance in the stadia, so it's always a balance between different factors," Schirgi from FIFA World Cup 26 said in an emailed statement.

Of course, achieving that balance doesn't necessarily mean ticket prices will be low. So when that first ticket sales window opens on Wednesday, one thing's for sure: Buying a World Cup ticket may turn into quite a game.
Copyright 2025 NPR

More than a month after the abrupt cancellation of this year’s Long Beach Pride Festival, the nonprofit behind the enduring celebration remains in a financial bind. It has so far been unable to repay its vendors, ticketholders and sponsors as it awaits a decision on whether its insurer will cover its losses.

That decision, according to Long Beach Pride President Tonya Martin, will factor heavily into whether they take more drastic action to cover the debt, such as selling or leasing out their headquarters.

“We do want to keep the building,” Martin said. “But if we have to sell it, we have to sell it, because right now all we can think about is how we’re going to pay back all the vendors and the rest of the ticketholders.”

According to the organization’s treasurer, Wayne Manous, Long Beach Pride filed a claim with its carrier, the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California, a few days after the festival was canceled on May 15. They expect a determination in the next week, Martin said.

“Once we receive the determination and award, we can begin refunding payments to our festival vendors which encompasses Information Booths, Seller Booths, Food Booths, Food Trucks, and others awaiting a refund,” Manous wrote in a June 10 email to vendors seeking refunds.

In an emailed statement Tuesday, the organization declined to offer the total amount it owes or elaborate more on its insurance claim, saying it will wait until “those processes are fully resolved.”

The festival was canceled last month after the city of Long Beach issued a cease-and-desist letter less than an hour before its opening event, saying Pride lacked the necessary permits to start.

Many vendors and ticketholders — some who flew in or drove from other parts of the country — say they were in transit or had already arrived at the festival grounds when they were given notice of the cancellation, either from the city or from friends on social media.

Erica Loring, who owns Shecanter, an online retailer of feminist and queer products, said she was driving up from San Diego the morning of the event when a friend texted her the news.

“I was very confused,” Loring said. “I had to try and figure out what the heck that meant, what it means for vendors, if we’ve gotten any emails to notify us. ‘Do we still go up there?’”

Kaitlyn Nguyen with Heritage 1857, a Vietnamese-style coffee brand, said she received notice not from Pride but from the city’s Health Department, telling her she no longer had permission to sell her goods there.

By that point, she said, her festival crew had already driven into town from Texas and set up a tent and driven an hour outside of town. When she tried to call Long Beach Pride’s general line to get more information, it was disconnected.

Nguyen said she spent around $2,500 on gas, fees, product, permitting and everything else she needed to participate. Now she’s uncertain how much, if any, she will recover. “With the communication that it is at right now, it’s just hard to tell, but I do hope that we get that amount back,” she said.

In the days following the festival’s cancellation, the city and Pride traded blame, offering dueling timelines over what caused it. Long Beach Pride argued it submitted documents and worked with the city in good faith through the final hours and was taken off guard by the city’s order to clear out.

Martin said she was stunned when officers delivered the cease-and-desist to the festival grounds. “You have two days to get everything off the site, or you’ll be arrested,” she recalled being told. “I was in shock, just floored. I was just weak at the knees.”

Tonya Martin, with an original Pride founder, Bob Crow, talks about Long Beach Pride in Long Beach, Monday, June 26, 2023.

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The city fired back in a 23-page memo, saying the nonprofit repeatedly failed to provide permitting materials and structural plans for stages, electrical systems and security. As the situation worsened, city officials offered to move guests into the Terrace Theater and open Bixby Park for a smaller event on Sunday, without alcohol sales or fenced festival grounds.

Pride declined both options, later saying the theater was too costly — more than $100,000, they said — while Bixby Park did not allow enough time to satisfy performers’ contractual requirements.

City spokesperson Laath Martin said Tuesday that Long Beach’s business licensing team has been offering refunds to vendors for city fees. But in the month since the event, vendors say they’ve heard little to no word from Pride itself on when or if they will be repaid for other expenses and fees.

Even before this year’s shock cancellation, the festival, established in 1983, had been struggling.

According to tax filings, Pride lost more than $1.8 million between 2022 and 2024 — $819,066 in 2022, $716,729 in 2023 and $306,000 in 2024. The organization has not turned a profit since 2019.

When Martin took over as president in 2023, she said she unknowingly inherited an organization already carrying $2.6 million in outstanding debt. A year after Martin took the helm, the nonprofit relinquished control of its long-running Pride parade. The city took over planning and funding for the signature event while Pride attempted to keep running the corresponding festival.

The crowds gather along Ocean Boulevard for the 41st Annual Long Beach Pride Parade in Long Beach, Sunday, May 19, 2024.

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The festival’s budget this year was $500,000, and Pride had raised less than $100,000 of it by the time the event was canceled, with only 331 tickets sold as of late April, according to Q Voice News. Pride declined to confirm the number of tickets sold or provide any detailed financial information to the Long Beach Post.

Corporate sponsorships, once a reliable source of major revenue, had largely evaporated, Martin said, naming Walmart and Coca-Cola as examples of large companies that have quietly pulled back as the Trump administration has coerced firms to forgo LGBTQ+ and diversity initiatives.

“They don’t want to upset the president,” Martin said. “Nobody will come out and say it, which I wish they would.”

Normally, Martin said, Pride hires an outside operator to put on the festival, which can run upwards of $400,000. But under financial pressure, she and the board voted to avoid the expense and handle the festival setup themselves. As Martin has repeatedly emphasized since the cancellation, they are all part-time volunteers.

This year’s event was shaping up to be small, according to Loring; only 13 retail or merchandise vendors were listed to participate. “Smaller than a tiny farmer’s market,” Loring said. Another 10 or so food vendors were signed up, Nguyen said, about half of what she’d expect at a festival this size.

“I was like, OK, was the application process a deterrent, or have bridges already been burned, and these businesses have learned not to come to Long Beach due to prior experience?” Nguyen said.

In a letter over the weekend, Pride said it wants to bring the festival back in 2027 under new leadership, with lessons learned and, it hopes, a more stable financial footing.

The board also said that Martin would step down from the presidency in August, a transition the organization said had been planned before the cancellation. Martin confirmed her exit on Monday, saying she will step away from the role and intends to help whoever succeeds her get up to speed. She said she also plans to hold a debrief with Mayor Rex Richardson to discuss what went wrong.

The organization is also working with the city to hold a free Teen Pride event in September.

“I don’t think Pride will ever go away, no matter what they do, even if we change the whole scope of the event itself,” Martin said. “It will never go away. It’ll always be there.”

But Loring, who made her vendor debut in Long Beach, said she would not return if the event is run by the same people.

She was shocked when Pride asked in a June 10 email if vendors and ticketholders would consider donating back a portion of their refunds to the organization. “The audacity for that was on another level,” Loring said.

“It seems as though the entire Pride organization needs an overhaul,” she said. “It needs a fresh set of eyes, a fresh set of experience in order for the community to move forward faithfully.”

Two icons of Los Angeles are coming together in Alhambra for a food pop-up this weekend — each has carved a unique place in Asian America.

On one end you have Kogi, bringing its Korean-Mexican fusion kimchi taco and blackjack quesadilla — and its food truck — to the collab. On the other is Sam Woo, old-school purveyor of Cantonese taste lending its char siu and roast duck from its OG location on Valley between 5th and 6th.

Together, they represent two generations of immigrant entrepreneurship that reshaped how L.A. eats.

“The best way to do it would be to come together like Voltron, but be ourselves separately,” said Roy Choi, chef and founder of Kogi BBQ. “So don't do anything to your roast duck. Don't do anything to your char siu. Don't do anything to our blackjack quesadilla. Don't do anything to our taco.”

The mash-up features two items – roast duck kimchi taco, and char siu blackjack quesadilla. The best-of-both-worlds concept extends to where the food will be served.

“ My whole vision was for Kogi truck to be parked in front,” said Karen Cheung, daughter of Sam Woo’s original owner.

Kogi x Sam Woo

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From Chinatown to everywhere

Restaurants come and go, but Sam Woo has remained the byword for Cantonese barbeque in Los Angeles and beyond for more than four decades.

On Christmas Day 1979, new immigrant Peter Cheung opened a stand serving take-out roast duck, char siu and the likes in Chinatown, bringing the family craft from Hong Kong to L.A.

“At the time, it was just my dad, my brother, and me,” Cheung, 67, said in Cantonese. “We hired a cashier and a meat cutter, that was about it.”

Cheung also brought over the Chinese name from the family business back home. It means “three harmonies” – among earth, heaven, and man. The English name Sam Woo was chosen because it sounded like the Cantonese words.

Sam Woo in Alhambra.

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In the late 1970s, his clientele was mainly Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants in the then-bustling enclave, with a small handful of customers coming in from Monterey Park.

Back then, he said, “All the restaurants were concentrated in Chinatown.”

As the Chinese-speaking diaspora expanded to the San Gabriel Valley, so too did Sam Woo. Cheung opened a Monterey Park location in 1981 (now closed) and the Alhambra outpost on Valley Boulevard in 1983.

Today, Cheung and his family own and operate four locations across the L.A. region — the oldest in Alhambra.

That little storefront served a loyal legion of eaters, including my family, who moved to Alhambra in the early 1990s — and a kid named Roy Choi.

Roy Choi, left, hands out food from his Kogi BBQ truck in Maywood in January 2024.

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Allen J. Schaben

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When Roy met Sam

Choi was hanging out in Alhambra and nearby 626 cities during high school and into college, at all-night Asian cafes and their parking lots where a subculture centered around modified Japanese cars took root.

“It was the cafes and the barbecue spots back in Alhambra that were early on in having a kind of a meeting ground for young Asian youth,” Choi said. “It might have been the birth of the AZN movement, you know what I'm saying?”

One place he always ate at was Sam Woo.

Strip mall signs in San Gabriel point to a majority Asian population in this part of Los Angeles.

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“One of the top five things to eat for me is roast duck or roast pork over rice with the sauce that drips down into it,” he said. “That's where I started really eating barbecue  — and this is before I was a chef.”

Forty-three years since it opened, the hole-in-the-wall in Alhambra has not been changed — inside or out. Karen remembers hanging out at the shop with her sisters growing up, filling small containers of sauces while their parents ran the operation.

“ When you walk into Alhambra, you feel like you are going back in time,” Karen said. “That's what people remember Sam Woo as, like the Mahjong clock, or the vintage menu that you do not ever see anymore. That's people's memories.”

Chef Roy Choi cooking inside Sam Woo in Alhambra.

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Sam Woo in Alhambra.

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How the collab fell into place

Choi wrote about eating at Sam Woo among other culinary adventures in L.A. earlier this year for the Financial Times.

Karen, one of Peter’s four children, read the story – and fired off a DM.

“I was like, ‘We're so honored. Out of all the restaurants you could talk about, you mentioned Sam Woo,” Karen said. “‘Let's do a collab.’”

Six months of planning later, with hundreds of pounds of char siu ready to be cooked, the crossover is happening.

“The inspiration is how delicious their food is [and] the longevity of their restaurant,” Choi said, whose Kogi has redefined fusion cooking and the food truck experience for 19 years and counting.

“We wanna bring something really special to Alhambra," he said. "Just a moment that you could say, ‘I was there.’”

The U.S. is easing its restrictions on Iran's World Cup team, allowing the squad to travel into the country two days before its next match, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

The team will still be required to leave after Friday's match in Seattle, a department spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the Iran Football Federation confirmed that the team will leave its base camp in Tijuana, Mexico, on Wednesday for Seattle.

"This was planned on our end," Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA Task Force, told The Associated Press. "We were going to look at how the first two movements went, and if they went smoothly, we would extend the extra day in light of the longer travel time."

The policy change was first reported by NBC News and comes as officials from both countries negotiate over how to end the war in Iran.

Iran's squad has complained about the travel restrictions levied on the team, and the challenges it has faced since the outbreak of war. Iran in March sought to move its group-stage matches to Mexico, with which it has diplomatic ties. Its request to move its base camp from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana was granted two weeks before the team's arrival. Several team officials and members of the support staff have been barred from traveling into the U.S. with the team.

For the first two matches, near Los Angeles, the team was not permitted to travel until the day before. Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei repeatedly said that restriction disadvantaged the team, especially when it had less than 24 hours on the ground before its noon match Sunday.

"Right now we need recovery more than anything," Ghalenoei said through an interpreter after the 0-0 draw against Belgium. "The conditions have been extremely hard for us."

It's not uncommon for teams to travel a day before the match, and it's in line with FIFA regulations, which state that "each team shall travel from its team base camp to the match venue one day before matchday (MD‑1) and in exceptional cases on MD‑2, and shall return to their team base camp after the match (on MD/MD+1)."

But Iran had asked for more time to acclimate to host cities and recover after matches, especially for the 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) trip to Seattle. The team is scheduled to train on Thursday at the University of Washington.

"We don't ask for much. We just ask for the same procedure as for all the other 47 teams," Iran captain Alireza Jahanbakhsh said Sunday. "Hopefully we can bring everyone who is involved and help us with us."

The Iran team has also said it experienced difficulties entering and exiting the U.S. each time it made the 127-mile (204-kilometer) flight between Tijuana and Los Angeles. The typically short trip took five hours the day before its first match against New Zealand, team captain Mehdi Taremi said.

Hours before Sunday's match against Belgium, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News the Iranians had "tried to get somebody in yesterday" who had direct ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard. In a statement, the soccer federation vociferously pushed back, calling the claim "an outright and undeniable lie."

Iran's players and coaches have mostly steered clear of outright commentary on the war. "We are here for football, not politics," Ghalenoei said Saturday. But the team hasn't shied from highlighting the victims of a deadly missile strike on an elementary school at the start of the war in the Middle East, likely launched by the U.S.

Players wore gold-colored pins with the number "168" on their jackets when they disembarked in Mexico on June 7, referencing the number of people killed in the attack, mostly young girls. They left a goodbye note in the locker room at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, after their match Sunday, calling for peace "among all nations" and with the hashtags #168 and #minab, the school's name.

At Iran's last training session Tuesday in Tijuana before departing for Seattle, four small flags had been stuck into the turf, each bearing the number 168.

It's unclear whether Iran's upcoming opponent, Egypt, will also be allowed to arrive in Seattle two days early. After its 3-1 victory against New Zealand in Vancouver Sunday, Egypt asked to fly directly to Seattle. FIFA denied that request, citing a lack of security resources to accommodate the last-minute demand. Egypt returned to its base camp in Spokane, Washington, a 45-minute flight from Seattle.

Egypt's national team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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