FIFA’s President in Philadelphia
The Club World Cup is now only days away from starting. While the tournament is coming soon, it doesn’t feel as though it has much hype, globally. This competition has been pushed heavily by FIFA and they’ve been encouraging fans from all over to attend the matches. They have even been using the Philadelphia Eagles in an attempt to garner interest from fans in this city.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino visited Philadelphia with the Club World Cup trophy in April where he met the Mayor, a few Eagles executives, and even wide receiver A.J. Brown. Pictures were taken and Infantino showed his support for the city and complimented the Eagles on their recent Super Bowl victory. FIFA’s president did his best to increase the local interest in his tournament, but if he really wanted the city to show more interest he should have put the Union in as participants.
Tickets to the games in Philadelphia are actually pretty affordable, as over half of the group stage matches are less than $50 to attend according to Ticket Master. The ticket prices likely reflect a low interest locally and globally for the competition, outside of the few biggest clubs participating. This follows a common thread in all host cities, as FIFA has largely lowered prices for their tickets across all matches of the tournament. For many American soccer fans, this tournament is a great opportunity to see some incredible teams for a good price. Even A.J. Brown might go see a game!
“I have never been to a soccer game, but this summer, I’m definitely attending. I always hear great things.” – AJ Brown
Well you’re in luck A.J., because tickets are quite cheap. It is currently cheaper ($160) to attend the quarter-finals match in Philadelphia than it was to go to most of the Eagles home games last season.
For such a big tournament, why are prices that low?
The Club World Cup has faced much scrutiny and has not been able to garner enthusiasm in Europe, where most of the participants call home. Teams in Europe were largely against the Club World Cup, but have changed their tune since the prize money was announced. FIFA have released the prize money for their competition, with a possible $125 million going to the winners of the cup. European teams are in line for a larger payout than teams from other continents, as each of the twelve participants will earn a minimum of $12 million just for participating. The largest and most marketable European teams will make over $30 million for merely showing up.
These large sums of money up for grabs are similar to those of Uefa’s Champions League performance awards. Money talks, and it has quelled concerns of teams not wanting to participate in the competition. Former Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti claimed that his club would not even participate in the competition as recently as last June. Ancelotti later backtracked his claims as he was under the impression that the clubs would earn significantly less money.
“A single Real Madrid match is worth 20 million and FIFA wants to give us that amount for the whole cup. Negative. Like us, other clubs will refuse the invitation,” – Carlo Ancelotti
Interest in Europe is so low that the current broadcaster DAZN, was unable to sell any of the viewing rights in the United Kingdom. FIFA has had trouble finding companies willing to pay the large sums of money they want for the rights to the Club World Cup. It is a surprise that their current TV deal even occurred, as they struggled to find a broadcasting partner for months. Then, DAZN had a mammoth offer of $1 billion to gain streaming rights globally. This offer came shortly after Surj Sports Investment Group invested the same amount of money in DAZN. Surj Sports Investment Group is part of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. So Saudi Arabia happens to be funding the Club World Cup just months after winning the bid for the already controversial 2034 World Cup.
According to USA Today, DAZN expects this tournament to be the most streamed sporting event of all time. DAZN’s CEO of Growth Market estimates streaming viewership of the tournament to reach hundreds of millions in total. In a 63 game tournament, one billion total viewers would make an average of over 10 million viewers per game globally. In comparison the NFL averaged over 13 million viewers per Thursday Night Football game streamed on Amazon Prime. The last world cup dwarfed both of those numbers with FIFA reporting an average global live audience of 175 million viewers.
If FIFA and their partners are able to make this tournament into a success, then the current ticket prices for some of the matches in Philadelphia will look like a bargain in hindsight. While many fans globally are not interested in the competition, money talks. Clubs are going to bring their best squads to Philadelphia and the rest of the United States. FIFA has opened a mini transfer window before the 14th of June which will allow teams to bring in some last minute reinforcements. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s transfer to Real Madrid is the prime example of how the participating teams view the Club World Cup.
Trent had a contract with Liverpool until the end of June, meaning he would have joined his new team Real Madrid halfway through the Club World Cup. Instead, Real Madrid paid $10 million so that Trent can play in the entire tournament. $10 million for a one month advance on a right back; this transfer shows that Real Madrid care about this tournament immensely. Maybe we should too.
Might care about it more if the games weren’t either weekday afternoons or 9pm starts. Only one weekend group game in Philly and Juventus v Wydad doesn’t really excite me, especially as a noon start.
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The round of 16 game is also a noon start on the last Saturday in June. Players will likely be dying on the field. 4th of July quarterfinal goes back to 9pm…and I’ll be away anyway.
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And who wants to watch a game at the Linc rather than the Soob?
I think there’s a really big chance this thing opens with half, or more, empty stadiums. These opening rounds in particular are underwhelming – no match-ups that are going to attract casuals looking for an exciting head to head.
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In the meantime, you just had that cracker of a nation’s league match between France and Spain. Do we need more football? I think Gianni has overestimated the demand for this tournament. We’ll see.
the sport has been diluted and players demand inflationary stipends. There is too much competition with other sports as well.
A half empty Linc is a failure for a rebranded and expanded tournament? What’s that say about US Open Cup attendance at the Soob? DAZN are streaming all the games for free and TNT, TBS & truTV will broadcast 24 games of the tournament plus TNT Sports’ Bleacher Report, House of Highlights, and B/R Football will produce and share content across their social platforms.
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The bigger problem for MLS right now is with the huge prize money awarded to teams, MLS players are capped at one million dollars, which they already achieved once they punched a ticket into the tournament as CONCACAF teams get 9.55 million for each team that plays. Right now they won’t get another dime if they win (2 million) or tie (1 million) a game in the first round. After that it’s more money for every round they advance.
In part it shows that it’s ridiculous that the Union were charging full price for early round open cup games when in the past the stadium was half empty with much cheaper tickets.
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Wondering how empty it will be tomorrow night when half the players against Atlas are Union II because so many Union players are away.
One point about the MLS player money is that 1 mil cap is shared. Hence the Seattle players “Cash Grab” protest shirts.
Apparently, the cap was negotiated a few years ago before FIFA drastically raised the cash incentive for teams.
I paid a lot more than $50 to be in the Chelsea Supporters section behind one of the goals. Not too happy. At least other Chelsea events are being organized in town at Tir Nar Nog.