On Tuesday, the Athletic reported that NJ Transit plans on hiking up the price of return tickets to New York Penn Station from World Cup games at the New York New Jersey stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., to more than $100, an approximately eight-fold increase from the ordinary ticket price of $12.90. This report comes approximately a week after the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) officially announced prices for its services to Boston-area World Cup games: $80 for round-trip express train tickets and $95 for round-trip tickets on a new direct shuttle bus service to Foxboro.
These are plainly extortionate prices. The habit in the United States is to heap blame onto public transit agencies, which, with few exceptions, have poor funding and even worse public relations, but in this case it is not NJ Transit or MBTA doing the extorting, even as they are the agencies levying these prices. The local governing bodies hosting World Cup games are in a bind: Despite nebulous declarations from FIFA president Gianni Infantino that the World Cup would inject something like $30 billion into the U.S. economy, the hosting cities themselves do not benefit from the direct revenue of World Cup ticket or concessions sales, broadcasts, or even official parking fees. All of the above go to FIFA.
Nevertheless, FIFA and the federal government have broadly shunted responsibility onto local governments for providing transportation in accordance with FIFA’s strict security requirements. The Federal Transit Administration will provide roughly $100 million in funding for improving transportation for the 11 U.S. World Cup host cities, but according to the Athletic report, providing service would cost NJ Transit alone as much as $48 million.
This has created a false binary for local governments: Either taxpayers will have to shoulder the burden of subsidizing the costs, or attending fans will. While an NJ Transit spokesperson did not confirm the ticket prices to the Athletic, they drew attention to comments made by New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill on Monday, stating, “One of the key things I wanted to make sure is that we are not going to be paying for moving the people who are viewing the World Cup on the back of New Jersey taxpayers and New Jersey commuters. And so we worked together closely to make sure that that cost will not be borne by New Jerseyans.”
Normal New Jerseyans will still suffer regardless. NorthJersey.com reported one week prior that commuters would not be able to access Jersey-bound trains from Penn Station in the four hours leading to World Cup matches, at least one of which will overlap with peak commuter hours.
Like many transit debacles, this is a uniquely American issue. During the 2024 European Championships in Germany, ticket holders had access to a 36-hour travel pass that provided free bus, tram, and metro rides, as well as free regional train service on non-high-speed lines. Even putting aside issues of general transit funding and competence, Germany also enjoyed the benefit of stadium location, and the baked-in benefits of coherent infrastructure: Each of that country’s eight host stadiums is accessible by ordinary, regular public transit, whether that be S-Bahn, U-Bahn, tram, or bus.
What New York–New Jersey and Boston share is that in both cases the host stadium is only accessible by select or special services (infamously, attendees are not permitted to walk to the Meadowlands), which makes any additional service both costly to provide and easy to price gouge. It is worth noting that not every U.S. host city is likely to have a NJ Transit or MBTA price debacle: In Aaron Gordon’s 2024 breakdown of each stadium’s transit accessibility, he notes that Seattle, Atlanta, Houston, and Philadelphia’s stadiums are all accessible via walking, light rail, or ordinary metro operations. To use the Philly sports complex as an example, it is impossible to place an additional fee on walking from South Philly, or to separate regular commuters on the Broad Street Line from soccer fans.
Both fans and transit agencies, then, are suffering not only from central authorities refusing to take on responsibility, but also from pre-existing infrastructural decisions made in an extraordinarily automobile-obsessed travel culture. Gordon’s breakdown points to similar situations, though not all (so far) are carrying similar price points: Transit-wise, Santa Clara’s stadium is only accessible via the Valley Transportation Authority light rail, which will provide special services to matches. Amusingly, direct service in Los Angeles is expected to cost only $1.75 each way.
Ordinarily totally inaccessible stadiums are additionally providing transit, to an extent. Miami will have free direct shuttles to its stadium, though only for Brightline passengers from Aventura Station. Kansas City will provide direct bus service from the fan zone and four park-and-ride sites (car likely still required; price, according to the website, still to be determined). Ticket holders in the Dallas–Fort Worth area will receive complimentary charter bus service (or vaguely phrased dynamic charter bus service), so long as they can access the Trinity Railway Express commuter rail.
In the face of how American car-centrism is impacting ticket prices, the fact that FIFA pockets the revenue from official parking fees feels bitterly apt, as far as FIFA’s parasitic grifts go. Perhaps visiting fans should eschew paying $100 and attempt to try to walk back from the New York–New Jersey stadium, legality be damned. On the highway, they can receive the best available lesson in why everything is the way that it is.
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