Club World Cup: Prize Money Analysis and Ticket Update

Written By Kwan Ng

An advertisement I saw on Instagram promoting the games at MetLife

There Has Been Low Demand and Ticket Sales

It’s becoming pretty clear that there is low ticket sales for the Club World Cup this summer. There are plenty of tickets remaining for all matches.

They’ve gotten their pricing strategy incredible wrong. FIFA should have gone low, ensured that there would be full stadiums, to create a better product to then sell to broadcasters, teams, and the global audience. Instead, they tried to skip a step and just went with high prices, assuming this untested product would be in demand just because. Add in the United States’ rapidly declining respect, reputation, and soft power, along with inflation and tariff fears weakening the economy, plus an ever increasing abundance of alternative sports options.

But most importantly, we still don’t know how seriously clubs will approach the tournament. Will it be an exhibition or a worthwhile tournament? FIFA has priced it for the latter, but sales seem to point towards the former. No one wants to pay a ton of money to watch two mediocre teams or one good team and one bad team, just jog around for a bit and pretend to care.

If this tournament’s history tells us anything it’s that the teams will be really divided into two groups. One group (the majority) seeing it as an opportunity to make some money, compete at a higher level, and earn a larger audience. The other as a distraction that they’ll go through for practice and a good deal of money, but not worth risking player’s health (too much). In the past (smaller, very different versions) it has basically been dominated by European teams who just show up at the end and take the trophy home (last time someone else won was 11 tries ago, in 2012). Usually playing a South American team in the final (6 of those 11 were South Americans, 3 Asian, 1 African, and 1 North American). There is a long history of everyone but the Europeans trying hard.

But FIFA Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is

What has been confirmed at the end of March, is that the prize money is $1 billion. A ridiculous amount of money for a tournament that has no in person ticket demand nor a bidding war for broadcasting rights (eventually getting $1 billion from DAZN). It does finally justify that giant estimated $4 billion that it has in cash reserves. But, this does change the typical expectation. Money drives the world, and it can be expected that this amount will certainly have teams interested in doing well. About half of the pool is for participation and half for performance.

I then looked up the prize money for winning your domestic league (ignoring other competitions if I could find enough data). And it’s really going to mess with things at the regional level. Keep in mind these numbers are not entirely accurate, but I traded accuracy for speed.

  • Europe

    • Most of the teams from the top leagues will earn $65M+ for winning it

      • England has the highest amount of ~$143M, followed by Germany, Italy, France, and Spain at around $65M - $85M

      • Portugal and Austria basically offer nothing as far as I can tell for winning their league

  • South America

    • Brazil’s top club would earn ~$8M

    • Argentina’s is unclear

  • Africa and Asia were missing a lot of public data, but it can be assumed it would be quite low; I saw ~$1M for Saudi Arabia and $2.5M for winning the entirety of the African Champions League (CAF)

  • North America

    • Mexico’s top club would earn ~$5M

    • USA’s top club would earn ~$4M

But most importantly this means that for basically every team outside the top five European leagues, they’ll earn more by showing up to the Club World Cup than they would in prize money from their domestic league (notably this excludes ticket sales, sponsorships, merchandising, media, and other revenue streams). So it can be pretty easily surmised everyone will show up. And with nearly half the money coming from performance, we can certainly expect some intense games.

Getting out of the group stage (5+ points minimum) would get you $4M+ and $7.5M for at least $11.5M+. Add that to the $9.55M that a team from most of the world would get and there’s $21.05M available if you get to the Round of 16. Which is a reasonable goal for just about any team participating. There is a strange discrepancy that a win (which is worth 3 points) is only worth $2M and a draw (which is worth 1 point) is worth $1M. So arguably you could earn more money by drawing three games than winning one and losing two. Strange math guys…

I averaged out the group stage position results for the past three World Cups to give myself an idea of what is a typical points total per position is and calculated their Club World Cup Performance Pillar bonuses.

  1. 7.1 points or $5M

  2. 5.1 points or $4M

  3. 3.3 points or $3M

  4. 1.0 points or $1M

From here you can do the whole tournament (doesn’t quite add up to 475, but close? Must be something off with the Group Stage estimates):

Performance Pillar Prize Money by Position

The blue lines are the total awarded for the group of teams in these positions (I also hate building charts in SquareSpace, just no ability to edit/format)

Now regional continental association tournaments like the Champions League (which every continent has their iteration of) have already exasperated the wealth disparity in leagues. But this is some serious exponential increasing of that.

  • The CAF Champions League (Africa) offers a prize of $2.5M to the winner (often Al Ahly of Egypt), and now a club getting out of the group stage could earn 10x that ($21.05M)

  • Copa Libertadores (CONMEBOL or South America’s) offers a prize of around $24M to the winner, so this would be about double for them ($26.71M) to make it out of the group stage

  • The CONCACAF Champions League (North America) offers a prize of $5M to the winner, so 4x to make it out of the group stage ($21.05M)

  • AFC Champions League Elite (Asia) offers a prize of $10M to the winner, so this would be more than double for them ($21.05M) to make it out of the group stage

  • The UEFA Champions League (Europe) offers a prize of ~$100M+ to the winner… but given the winner is likely to be from Europe, the potential winner (if from Europe) of the Club World Cup could earn upwards of $150M, and given the distribution of teams in the group stage, it’s highly likely they all get to the group stage, making their “participation” award a cool $25M - $50M. Which they can probably all do with their reserves / youth teams doing most of the heavy lifting through the group stage.

Sorry Auckland City FC, you don’t really matter for these discussions, you play in a stadium smaller than my high school (but still it must be pretty cool to play against Bayern Munich! Which I hear is one of the best sold games actually).

Data mostly from news reports and https://goaltheball.com/category/money/

Is FIFA About To Break Club Football With More Money?

As you can see, the money clubs will be receiving for participating will create a huge financial disparity. There’s two perspectives on this. Either a pro (trickle down economics / introductory offer) or con (longer term dynastical changes and animosity).

Cons

The prize money is just a substantial boost that will certainly start exasperating domestic leagues around the world. Financially they cannot compete with this and become less of a priority. There will be financial distortion, attracting the better players, coaches, and staff in their localized countries. Heck, we could even see “big fish” in small ponds going to larger ponds and taking players because the former has more financial stability. This can be stretched into multi-year dynasties easily given how much money this delta is. It will likely hurt domestic league balance and could cause a drop in viewership in attendance if outcomes become too predictable.

Generally these clubs in attendance already outspend their neighbors, or they just happened to get in and now have a nice cash influx that could change status quo’s. Such is the case of Liverpool, being boxed out tens of millions in revenue, because of the two team maximum per country. Barcelona missing out due to a couple year stint of performing poorly (especially when it is in dire need of funds to continue to operate). Or some big Brazilian clubs like Internacional and Corinthians are missing out as four of their compatriots get this windfall. Japan’s Urawa Red Diamond’s will reap the benefit of a great run in 2022, while generally being a mid table side in their league, while higher performers like Kawasaki, Yokohama, Kobe, Sanfrecce, and others miss out. Portugual has a historical big 3, and Sporting CP of Lisbon is missing out, is this the start of a duopoly?

In many countries in the world it will further harm the existing imbalance. Paris Saint Germain in France will just get more uneven (they’re currently 21 points ahead of second and are undefeated with a few games left in the season; they have won 11 of the last 13 titles). I mean how is this going to work for Auckland City FC? Auckland, you’re back in. You’ll earn more money than anyone in your league has ever dreamed of. Although to be fair, I just found out that you’ve won 13 of the last 18 OFC Champions Leagues, so you’re already the dominant team in the region, so nothing changes there. It will also be viewed that winning the continental association tournament is even more important as it gets you an automatic berth into the Club World Cup, so a double whammy of increased revenue over a team’s domestic rivals.

This tournament occurring every four years could also compound the boom or bust nature of investor’s intermittently surging into global football’s promotion / relegation / qualification reward system. But perhaps investment in sport is generally a good thing. Better that than other less savory options.

Pros

Perhaps I give the clubs too much credit in how effective they’ll be with this money. Maybe owner’s will just pocket the money or waste it, which is all too common. Or trickle down economics wise, teams could spend and help flood their local economies with much needed cash. Overspend on local talent, improve local infrastructure, it could all help increase local viewership and impact.

It also may give leagues with typically low stakes like the MLS a lot more to be interested in based . Annual qualification into the CONCACAF Champions League will have more ramifications since it can lead to the Club World Cup. Sort of like an “all-promotion” system with no relegation penalty except falling behind.

With the limited number of clubs participating, and the prize money amortized over four years, it probably won’t have too huge of an affect on major leagues like the Premier League. Plus it is likely that this amount of prize money is a one off, sort of an introductory offer to entice clubs and fans alike to get interested and this prize money will be reduced in the future.

I’m vastly curious how planning goes on over the next cycle and how this affects clubs and fans. For example, I see a situation where I no longer root for other English clubs to succeed in Europe as I don’t want Liverpool to have the best chance as possible to qualify for the next one. Currently I want English clubs to do well because a high coefficient means more spots for English clubs in Europe and a stronger domestic league (via more competition and funds).

Market Value Analysis

It was difficult to compare clubs against one another. There just isn’t a lot of historical data out there. Eventually a friend recommended that I just go with the one true God in our world. Money. Using Transfermarkt’s data, I looked up the market value of each squad and compared them for all matchups. With the assumption that a similar team market value along the theory of efficient markets means the players are all of similar quality and we can expect a good matchup. (For missing Leon, I’ve used an average of Los Angeles FC and Club America). As you can see below, Groups A, E, and F are the lowest value. They are also 3 of the 4 that don’t have two European teams.

Transfer Market Value by Group

in millions of USD

Another interesting look was the market value of the top two clubs in each group. This would show how dominant the group would be. The lowest bars being the most “open” groups. This is definitely groups A and E (84% & 88% respectively). Whereas the worst and likely most easy to predict the results is Group G at 98%.

Market Value of The Top 2 Clubs in Each by Group

The next step was to compare the teams against one another in their own group. Thereby seeing what matchups would theoretically be the closest. There are some obvious caveats, we’re assuming they play their maximum value (not reserves) and it’s capped by the number of players that can actually be on the field (Manchester City has the highest value, but they have more players than they can actually play at once). Matchups between teams with close market values indicates a closer match with more unpredictable results.

There were only 11 matches of the 48 group stage matches that had a market value disparity less than 75%. 3 of which are all European contests, which we can probably assume will feature a large number of reserves (on the reverse hand, because European teams will likely use more reserves, their value will actually be lower, and thereby could have more competitive matchups). That leaves the following 8 matches as the most interesting:

  • A - M4 - Palmeiras v. Porto - 42%

  • A - M35 -Palmeiras v. Inter Miami CF - 64%

  • B - M5 -Botafogo v. Seattle Sounders - 17%

  • D - M39 -Flamengo v. TBD - 67%

  • E - M28 -River Plate v. Monterrey - 15%

  • F - M11 -Ulsan HD v. Mamelodi Sundowns - 35%

  • G - M46 -Wydad Casablanca v. Al Ain - 27%

  • H - M47 -Al Hilal v. Pachuca - 25%

3 on Matchday 1, 1 on Matchday 2, and 4 on Matchday 3. If I had to guess, it would be the bolded 4 on Matchday 3 that are the most interesting (though inevitably some of them may be entirely irrelevant if the top two teams have secured the group already).

My Predictions of Interesting Games Based on Performance / Effort

After that long winded route to just show some of the financial gains. I thought it would be interesting to make some predictions. This is based on a few factors:

  1. History

    • As previously mentioned, certain clubs / regions seem to have a greater interest in performing well (South America and Real Madrid)

  2. Financial Incentives

    • Clubs that can earn more than they could in a year (or even multiple years) would be highly incentivized (or may heavily need an influx of cash, ahem Chelsea or the Portuguese clubs)

  3. Group Stage Opponents

    • There’s at least one European team in each group, some having two, so I’ll value clubs that have a greater chance (typically 3rd seeds with an opportunity to get out of the group stage)

  4. Player Health / Squad Depth

    • Will they save legs for later in the tournament / the long grueling season (Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan, and others)

  5. Market Value Analysis

    • Matchups between teams with close market values indicates a closer match with more unpredictable results (assuming they play their maximum value) and I removed all European group stage matches, because they’ll likely play reserve squads, unless they have a poor result earlier and need to qualify

I would love to overlay demographics of the stadiums/regions + distance from the club + average income of the club’s fan to see if you can predict attendance sizes. A big part of these international tournaments are the fans (something FIFA and to be fair, most sports organizations overlook) so it would be interesting to see where the crowds might be most likely. But I digress… for now.

Okay, with all that said. Here’s are some of my initial thoughts by group. These are limited to the matches within the group stage, and I’ll be focused on excitement and energy. Bolded are the ones that are closest in transfer market value.

  • Group A

    • Inter Miami are the real wild card here. They’ve basically never really played internationally and with all the recent transactions with the Messi era, it’s hard to tell how they’ll do. They’ll have home crowds and Messi will certainly be motivated. Also the MLS will be early/mid season, so legs will be fresher than end of the season Europeans. They have a good chance to upset either Palmeiras or Porto and get out. Tickets for these games are already pricy, but that’s the Messi effect. Palmeiras v. Porto then becomes an interesting prospect and has the closest market value at 42%.

      • M16 - 6/19 in Atlanta

      • M35 - 6/23 in Miami

      • M4 - 6/15 in New Jersey

  • Group B

    • Don’t watch these games. I see both European clubs sending out reserve squads, neither smaller club being able to do much about it, and them strolling out of the group. If you’re going to see one, probably Seattle Sounders v. Botafogo, the winner is the only one with the chance to get out, and Seattle probably the worse team, has a great home stadium, and the energy could be great.

      • M5 - 6/15 in Seattle

  • Group C

    • Not much to see here. See Group B. Boca Juniors v. Benfica is the only one that could be interesting. But Benfica will probably win it easily.

  • Group D

    • It’ll be between Flamengo, Esperance de Tunis, and the TBD team replacing Club Leon (either LAFC and Club America), but probably Flamengo going second. Chelsea will take first. They are highly motivated to get some much needed cash, plus with a ridiculous squad depth, they can play reserves and rotate better than probably any team in attendance. This group is intriguing, but still should be straightforward. Chelsea v. Flamengo should be the one to watch, with Flamengo sensing Chelsea weakness, they would come out swinging, but Chelsea still has lots of quality. Flamengo against the replacement club could be another big opportunity.

      • M22 - 6/20 in Philadelphia

      • M39 - 6/24 in Orlando

  • Group E

    • Monterrey v. River Plate will be an interesting game simply because of the big fan bases. I could see either taking a spot with Inter Milan. Inter Milan (reserves) v. River Plate is also slightly intriguing.

      • M28 - 6/21 in Los Angeles

      • M43 - 6/25 in Seattle

  • Group F

    • Mamelodi Sundowns could be a spoiler for Dortmund (reserves) who may phone it in. And I’m a big proponent of having more African teams getting some attention. Maybe Mamelodi Sundowns v. Ulsan HD will be the strangest random matchup.

      • M25 - 6/21 in Cincinnati

      • M11 - 6/17 in Orlando

  • Group G

    • Not much to see here. See Groups B and C. Maybe a Juventus reserves v. Wydad Casablanca could be interesting? But unclear. Wydad v. Al Ain is close in wages, but they’re likely playing for nothing so it probably waon’t be that interesting.

      • M29 - 6/22 in Philadelphia

  • Group H

    • Pachuca v. Al Hilal is my highest ranked game based on all my criteria. Red Bull Salzburg being the lowest ranking European team could be disappointing (but you never know how much effort the Red Bull conglomerate puts into it). Al Hilal has good Saudi money. So I’ll say Red Bull Salzburg v. Al Hilal.

      • M47 - 6/26 in Nashville

      • M31 - 6/22 in Washington DC

So there you have it, my predictions pre tournament of what games will be exciting. Certainly will be ready to update this all after the first matchday is completed and we have a better sense of who showed up and how things are going to work.

In general, my advice is to keep an eye on Flamengo, Palmeiras, and River Plate. They’re three teams that are good enough and motivated enough to make a deep run into this.

So Back To Tickets; Some New Packages Have Dropped

FIFA desperate to drum up some ticket sales for this, has tried to tie in 2026 World Cup tickets with two ticket pack options. Which is actually a bit frustrating for me. Since I have tickets to two matches already, and I don’t get the benefit now of a potential 2026 World Cup ticket. I did the math on reselling and repurchasing, and it doesn’t work out in my favor… thanks Ticketmaster. Anyway, there are two options.

The Super (Insanity) 20 Ticket Pack That Gets You a Ticket to the World Cup Final

I won’t elaborate too much into this one because there have been a lot of articles and videos (Reddit, Yahoo, Daily Hive, and The Times) about it when it was released. But basically you have to buy 20 tickets on 20 different days and attend them all yourself, and you get the guaranteed option to buy a ticket to the World Cup Final next year. There are 22 matchdays… so you can only skip two days. Beyond the initial shock and ridicule, I was vastly curious though. What is the cheapest amount you could possibly do this for… sounds like a fun logistic travel project for yours truly.

Here’s the theoretical plan. You mostly are going to rent a house/hotel and car somewhere in New Jersey. Let’s say Edison, NJ. It leans closer to MetLife Stadium than Lincoln Financial Field, but good access to both, plus easy to get to Newark International Airport. And you’d hop back and forth between these two stadiums. So I calculated the cost of accommodations, car rentals, gas, cabs, flights, and ticket costs. It would cost you… $2,435 for one ticket pack and I think one could do it for just under $10,000 (inclusive of everything mentioned before, but not inclusive of food, drink, or any other recreation, fun, or the starting and ending flights).

If you still care about this weird tangent that I’m writing at 4 am, here’s the breakdown (assuming you start in Miami and end in NJ):

  • 26 hotel nights for $4,300

    • 22 of which are in Edison, NJ; plus two nights in Atlanta, and one each in Miami and Charlotte

    • I averaged $150 a night in NJ and $250 everywhere else

  • The 20 matches for $2,435

    • 8 in Philly and 8 in NJ, 2 in Atlanta, and one each in Miami and Charlotte

      • There’s a 10 day stretch of every day switching between Philly and NJ

      • Preceded by the opening match in Miami

      • Followed by a flight a day for four days to hit all the Round of 16 matches

    • 12 Group Stage, all 4 Round of 16, and both Quarterfinals and Semifinals

      • Skipping a group stage day on 6/25 and the final on 7/13

  • Renting a car from Newark Airport for $1,300 for about 20 days

    • You’d have to drive ~2,000 miles, which I equated to ~$205 of gas, based on ~$3 per gallon gas, plus ~$28 mpg average.

      • Edison is ~70 miles away from Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field

      • Edison is ~33 miles away from New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium

      • Edison is ~24 miles away from Newark Liberty International Airport

  • Cabs for about $425

    • To and from airports and stadiums when away

  • 5 Flights for about $1,000, luckily they’re all pretty major destinations, and there seems to be plenty of options at great pricepoints, all direct

    • Miami to Newark

    • Newark to Atlanta

    • Atlanta to Charlotte

    • Charlotte to Atlanta

    • Atlanta to Newark

But let’s be real. Since I live in the area and am a big fan of public transit… I think I could do even better. Saving big on the hotel category and car rental. I would replace that with a lot of train tickets… Amtrak points baby. Getting to MetLife from my apartment costs $18.40 round trip. To Lincoln Financial it would cost around $85.80 (if I book now, Amtrak prices go up a lot as you get closer to the date). This means I could probably do this for just about $6,000. 6 grand to then pay FIFA an unknown amount for a ticket to the final? Not… the worst.

But I suppose there’s the additional costs of spending all your time going to these games back to back to back, probably getting fired from your job, burning out and losing interest, not having much fun anymore. Wanting to bring friends along, but who else is gonna spend that kind of money… Hmm, now thinking about the work implications, how much time would I have to take off? A quick scan of the kick off times and travel times would mean I would have to take 7 PTO days off to be able to reasonable attend these midday midweek games.

Well if anyone wants to sponsor me and my friends. That’s my minimum asking price per person, and likely other people are not as crazy as I am.

The (Somewhat Reasonable, But Still Chaotic) 2 Ticket Pack

So while the first ticket pack is just logistically crazy for 2025, it is at least pretty clear that you get the right to buy a ticket for the 2026 World Cup Final. This pack is the reverse. You can buy two tickets for the Club World Cup as cheap as $100 and get a right to buy a ticket for the 2026 World Cup. The problem is… there is no information as to what that ticket might be for the World Cup in 2026. FIFA maintains the right it could be anything for any price, first come first serve. So they have a lot of power and you’re at their whim. As low as $50 a game isn’t a bad deal. And it’s possible ticket prices continue to drop.

Other Terms and Conditions that I found interesting:

  • You cannot sell or transfer the tickets, you have to attend all matches yourself for it to be valid (you can bring guests)

  • It is unclear if you buy multiple packs if you get multiple ticket chances for the World Cup

  • FIFA can determine at its sole discretion what match or matches will be avialable for your purchase option, as well as how many, what type, and it’s first come first serve…

    • Though it will not be in Mexico or Canada

So yeah, the terms and conditions are strongly in FIFA’s favor, but I think it’s just legalese to protect themselves. I imagine there will be a reasonable number of low interest group stage matches in a variety of locations that you can purchase for a lot of money.

Summary of MetLife Stadium’s Club World Cup Options

I’m not flying anywhere for this tournament, and luckily I live within a public transit ride of the stadium with 9 games for the tournament. So I thought I’d give a little overview for the locals who are interested in going. I will likely purchase some two packs for M4 and M17 for $160, though I’m also considering switching M17 for a Semifinal, for a total of $400, but that’s obviously a lot more…

Group Stage

  • M4 - Palmeiras v. Porto

    • Probably the best looking match of the group stage in New Jersey

      • Matchday 1 typically has cagey results in many tournaments, because teams are sorta feeling it out

      • May also be too early in the tournament and the product hasn’t proven itself yet

      • Brazil v. Portugal is fun, with a shared language and history

      • Most expensive cheap ticket of the group stage at $90

      • Highest Market value disparity of 42% which is relatively pretty close

  • M9 - Dortmund v. Fluminense

    • Highly dependent on which players Dortmund starts, but it could be competitive

      • Cheapest ticket is $70

      • Market value disparity of 489% which is a very wide gap

      • I have tickets to this one already via a Dortmund fan application

  • M17 - Palmeiras v. Al Ahly

    • Probably the second best looking match of the group stage in New Jersey

      • Cheapest ticket is $70

      • Could have a strong fan showing, except that it’s a weekday

      • Market value disparity of 89% which isn’t very close

  • M27 - Fluminense v. Ulsan HD

    • Pretty one sided, probably not worth attending

      • Cheapest ticket is $70

      • Market value disparity of 75% which is sort of close

  • M36- Porto v. Al Ahly

    • Pretty one sided, probably not worth attending, especially at 9 pm on a Monday night; maybe I’ll just watch it at an Egyptian bar

      • Cheapest ticket is $70

      • Matchday 3 can be interesting if there is an opportunity for one or both teams to progress, but also can be very boring if everything is already settled, and based on my prediction it might already be

      • Market value disparity of 92% which isn’t very close

Knockout Rounds

  • Those Semifinal games are looking tasty. Winning it brings your club $30-$70M, I’m sure there will be bonuses for the players too. Prices are minimum $300, but I kinda see it being potentially worth it. Again, throughout researching and writing this, I have a feeling that the money will drive the product. Are the prices worth it? Probably not, but could you see something incredible? Possibly.

  • The Final earns a club $40M more than the loser. That prize money is worth more than the Champions League Final. The only other huge single game comparison is the EFL Championship Playoff Final which earns a club $215M over three seasons (minus the loser getting arguable ~$45M in the EFL over that time frame, so $170M).

Some other thoughts:

  • Category 4 at MetLife amounts to about 2,000 seats based on my rough counting.

    • I did not include them in the below table since they weren’t included in the FIFA 2 ticket package, but prices are: $55.75 for the 4 group stage games with $70 Cat 3 tickets if they are available. For M4 and M36 they look sold out and are only available for more expensive resale prices.

  • Half of Category 2 (sections 334 - 343) look closed, to try and fabricate some scarcity and reduce resale tickets for all the group stage matches except M4 and M27 (or the two weekend matches).

    • Oddly this group of tickets is also missing from the knockout rounds, perhaps they’ve reserved them for certain ticket packages?

  • Demand is incredibly weak. I see generally at least 5,000 tickets available for each of the group stage matches.

  • There are very few level 200 seats available or category 1 between 111-115 and 135-142, which makes me think these are generally being reserved for Hospitality and are sold elsewhere.

Kwan Ng
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