The Women’s World Cup will be taking place in Australia and New Zealand this summer…forgive yourself if you didn’t know that.
For a major sporting event such as this - and I'm using “major” quite loosely since not that many people care about it - you would expect that most, if not all, of the tickets for these matches would be sold out. But, that’s just not the case.
France 24 reported that ticket sales in New Zealand have been downright dreadful in the build up to the tournament. New Zealand will host a total of 29 matches, and 930,000 tickets are available at ridiculously cheap prices - a ticket for an adult is $12 and $10 for a child.
But even with the incredibly low price of tickets, only 220,000 of the tickets have been purchased, which at most means that the Federation International Football Association (FIFA) has only garnered $2.6 million from tickets for an event that cost way more than that to put on. Say what you want about the tournament still being six weeks from starting and New Zealand having a relatively small population. Even if you add those caveats into the equation, that’s a shockingly low number of sales.
“If anything is keeping me awake at night, it’s ensuring that New Zealanders maximize this opportunity,” Jane Patterson, the tournament’s chief operating officer in New Zealand, said.
Paula Hansen, a New Zealand Football Official, believes that some stadiums will eventually sell out.
For FIFA’s sake, that better be the case. But maybe it'll have to learn the hard way that even for a bargain price, people aren't that anxious to see a bunch of progressive female athletes play soccer.
