If you had told me that more than 70,000 effervescent football fans would pack Los Angeles¡¯ SoFi Stadium on a Monday night to watch, ahem, New Zealand take on Iran, I¡¯d have replied: not in a hundred years.
Yet that¡¯s exactly what happened on June 15. Even more remarkably, ticket prices surged 23% in the final three days before kickoff, pushing the get-in price on resale platforms to a whopping $420. This, for a match between a country locked in military conflict with the U.S. and another of just 5 million people on the other side of the planet. Neither team had ever advanced beyond the World Cup¡¯s group stage, but what a thrilling 2-2 draw they gave us!
The price spike is the product of the collective frenzy unleashed by the start of the world¡¯s biggest sporting event. As soon as the ball began to roll, many of the pre-tournament anxieties, from the heat and transportation headaches to the inevitable fatalism of some commentators, faded into the background.
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