- New York City Launches $50 World Cup Ticket Lottery for Residents
New York City residents will get a chance to attend 2026 FIFA World Cup matches for just $50, after Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a special ticket lottery aimed at making the tournament more accessible to local fans.
The initiative will make 1,000 discounted tickets available to city residents for matches at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, one of the key venues for the tournament being co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The tickets will cover seven matches at the stadium five group-stage fixtures and two knockout games with about 150 tickets allocated for each match. The July 19 final is not included in the programme.
The $50 tickets will also include free round-trip bus transportation to the stadium, easing one of the major cost barriers for local supporters.
Speaking at a press conference in Harlem alongside New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Mayor Mamdani said the initiative was designed to ensure that working people are not excluded from one of the world’s biggest sporting events.
“We are making sure that working people will not be priced out of the game that they helped to create,” he said, joking that $50 was roughly the cost of five coffees in New York City.
Applications for the lottery will open on May 25, with winners allowed to purchase up to two tickets each. The tickets will be non-transferable and distributed at the designated bus boarding point on matchday to reduce the risk of scalping.
The initiative comes amid growing concern over World Cup ticket affordability. According to ticket tracking platform TicketData, the average entry price for a group-stage match in the New York area stood at $864, while premium seats for the World Cup final in New Jersey have reportedly been listed for nearly $33,000.
The pricing debate has intensified as FIFA’s official resale and exchange marketplace, together with other resale platforms, has seen some tickets listed for thousands of dollars.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has defended the tournament’s pricing structure, but the growing cost of attendance has drawn criticism from fans, community leaders and public officials who argue that the World Cup risks becoming inaccessible to many ordinary supporters.
New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam welcomed the ticket initiative, saying the tournament must be inclusive.
“This is the moment to make sure that everybody is included, that everybody is lifted up,” he said.
The $50 ticket lottery is being presented as a local intervention to widen access, although the scale remains modest when set against the size of New York City and the 82,000-seat capacity of MetLife Stadium.
Still, the programme could become a model for other host cities facing similar criticism over affordability, transport costs and the risk that local residents may be priced out of a tournament hosted in their own communities.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the largest in history, featuring 48 teams and matches across North America.
For New York, the discounted ticket initiative offers a symbolic response to a practical problem: how to ensure that the global game remains visible not only to corporate guests and wealthy travelling fans, but also to residents whose cities are helping to host the tournament.
