Posted on 05/20/2026 1:14:06 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The World Cup was supposed to provide a tourism boom for the US, but now the fear is it may never materialise.
A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city.
The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short".
The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all franchised hotels.
Its report partially puts the blame at the door of Fifa, accusing world football's governing body of block-booking far too many rooms for its own use and creating false demand.
This, the AHLA said, led to artificially high pricing which, after Fifa cancelled a large number of rooms, has been replaced by a vacuum of availability.
Fifa said it does not recognise this accusation.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
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FIFA really over played their hand.
Example: You live in Europe or South America which has a strong soccer following. Pay a couple thousand to fly to Kansas City (for example) to watch a game whose tickets are a couple thou per game. Spend another thousand for hotels and meals etc. You are into this one game for 8 to 10,000 bucks. Who has money like that save for the 1 percenters?
Nobody has any effing money! We’re being squeezed from all sides globally.
Plenty of people have the money. There’s more rich people in the world today than ever before. That’s why they can get away with these prices, and screw over the locals. They can afford it, you can’t.
It’s the same with real estate.
The security costs for the states hosting these games will be astronomical.
My guess; the tickets were way too expensive in the first place but were bought up by scalpers, only to not be able to unload them for a profit, so there’s very few buying them and looking for a hotel.
Even if they do buy a ticket and look for a hotel, the prices are probably driving people to suck up a longer drive to a game.
Greed. It’s supposed to be a game for the regular folks, cheap and easy to play or watch.
Time to start arresting scalpers, they are a plague.
Should transgender, Nazi and Palestinian flags also be allowed?
It's a slippery slope.
don't talk about the huge price increase due to big sport's event..... that high price room rate, higher airfare and estimated higher local costs for everything have NO EFFECT on people's plans....
“Everybody got WAYYYYY too greedy on this one.”
Everybody is WAYYYY to entranced in this event. It’s a SPORT, for Pete’s sake. I don’t know what kind, but I do know it’s a SPORT.
Yeah, that's the elephant in the room no one is talking about. The powers that be have been trying to ram soccer down our throats for years.
Exactly! Soccer is like DEI and faggotry.
Because soccer is boring.
The MLS is boring.
Maybe they can hie that Bad Bunny guy to spice up the show.
Oh pumpkin, I have many money. I choose to spend it on things that matter. Sports in all forms is draining.
I don’t have all that much but I am very good at not giving any sports a dime.
The same with the annual SC State Fair.
I doubt there’s anything for the hotels to worry about. Soccer fans are bat-sh** crazy for a boring game! If they’ll pay $2500 for a ticket, I doubt they’d sleep in the park instead of a hotel room.
“Time to start arresting scalpers, they are a plague.”
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Scalpers sometimes are the problem. In this case, it’s FIFA tha is the problem. My adult kids and our families would pay up to $500.00 a ticket for a game we want to see in Houston. It’s the Netherlands against Albania.
BUT FIFA has a stupid lottery system for a portion of the tickets where if you win the games you want the tickets are like $1500 each. Otherwise, you continue to wait as the prices slowly come down in the next partial lottery. It’s a bad joke. Probably better to wait till just before game day and try to get some from a second source. That could be iffy if the ticket you get is counterfeit.
Oh my God! You are so spot on! I refuse to go to the county fair… Such a rip off. Used to be wholesome until “woke” became a thing. Woke. Ruins. Lives.
My bumper sticker: FOfifa!
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