NEW YORK (AP) — Some lucky New York City residents will soon get a chance to snag cheap seats to this summer’s high-priced World Cup.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Thursday that 1,000 tickets costing $50 will be made available to residents of the city of more than 8 million for the most watched sporting event in the world.
“To put that into perspective, that is five lattes in New York City,” Mamdani quipped from a bar in Harlem’s Little Senegal neighborhood alongside U.S. men’s national team star Timothy Weah.
The tickets will be available for seven of the eight games played at the roughly 82,000-seat MetLife Stadium, located across the river from Manhattan in New Jersey. The lone exception is the high demand July 19 final, where some seats now cost nearly $33,000.
The tickets will also include free roundtrip bus transportation to the stadium for the ticket holders, the mayor said. They will be distributed via a lottery starting May 25.
With persistent concerns about the sky-high costs for tickets to the games, Mamdani said the city would be taking steps to ensure the ones they distribute go to New York City residents and are not resold on the secondary market.
He said the tickets will be non-transferrable and that there will be a “variety of ways” city officials will verify residency. They’ll also only be handed out directly to the fans as they board the bus on game day.
“We are making sure that working people will not be priced out of the game that they helped to create,” Mamdani said.
The Democrat, who took office in January, said the effort underscores how his administration is not simply focused on making everyday things like housing and groceries more affordable.
“It extends to making it possible for every New Yorker to take part in the things that make us human,” he said.
During his campaign, Mamdani had called on FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, to make it cheaper for New Yorkers to attend the games by setting aside 15% of tickets at discounted prices for residents. He’d also launched a petition calling on FIFA to reverse its plan to set ticket prices based on demand.
The $50 tickets don’t come directly from FIFA, but from those allotted to New York and New Jersey’s joint host committee for the games, according to the mayor’s office.
Previously, FIFA had made some $60 tickets available for every game at the tournament in North America after facing backlash for the exorbitant prices for tickets.
Those reduced price tickets, though, went to the national federations of the teams playing in the games, with those federations deciding how to distribute them to loyal fans who have attended previous games at home and on the road.
Besides the championship game, the home stadium for both the NFL’s New York Giants and New York Jets is set to host five group World Cup matches and two knockout stage games. Group stage matches for soccer powerhouses Brazil, France, Germany and England, along with other nations, begin June 13.
