The U.S. Men’s National Team may have fallen short in its quest to make this summer’s World Cup – but U.S. fans (or at least residents) are still planning on making the trek to Russia, purchasing the second-highest total of tickets to the quadrennial showcase of the world’s most popular sport. Next to Russia – which is the host country and sold 796,875 tickets – U.S. takes the second spot for the country with the most seats sold. Before the final phase of sales, fans in the U.S. purchased 80,161 tickets. The next closest country to match America is Brazil at 65,863, followed by Columbia (60,199) and Australia (34,6287).
Since 2014, this U.S. attendee amount dropped dramatically by less than half, but 80,000 tickets is a considerable amount when the country doesn’t even have a team playing in the tournament. That, naturally, doesn’t factor in fans of numerous other international teams who live in the United States travelling to see their native land national teams participate.
The World Cup will take place from June 14 to July 15, and so far, nearly 1.7 million tickets have been sold. Tickets are only available on the official FIFA website. Since the sale began last September, fans have been crazily waiting online for hours, trying to score tickets. FIFA set up various sale phases to give fans the opportunity to “wait in a line” to buy seats; the demand was so high that the site actually crashed. The final “Last-Minute Phase” to buy tickets opened on April 15 and is running through the end of the tournament. These remaining tickets are first come, first serve.
Although tickets may appear to be sold-out, FIFA encourages fans to keep checking the website.
“Due to the possibility of tickets being resold through FIFA.com/tickets and the possible release of ticket inventories reserved for selected FIFA constituent groups, tickets for specific matches, which at some point could be unavailable, may possibly become available again,” the FIFA website states.
All guests are required to apply for a FAN ID, which will not only give fans perks, but also allows visa-free entry to Russia. FIFA also released the design of this year’s official World Cup ticket last month, which includes a map to the buyer’s seat and the list of games right on the ticket.