Why USMNT fans paid thousands for a 'once-in-a-lifetime' World Cup experience

Two days before the United States men’s national team took on Australia in Seattle, Jakub Heyduk, Andy Skosky and Jim Martin took the plunge and bought tickets for $1,800 apiece.

“We entered over 10 different raffles and things like that and never got selected. We were just waiting and eyeing the right time to buy, and pulled the trigger on Wednesday,” Heyduk told Yahoo Sports ahead of the June 19 matchup, a 2-0 victory for the USMNT.

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The three friends, sipping on beers at 9:30 a.m. in the Seattle Stadium concourse, admitted the price was steep. (The get-in price had dropped slightly to $1,500 right before the game.) But the timing had worked out too well not to go: While Heyduk and Skosky are based in Seattle, Martin and his wife were visiting from St. Louis in a trip that just happened to overlap with the U.S. game.

“We’re in our 40s,” Martin said.

“On the decline,” Heyduk quipped.

“Right, on the decline,” Martin continued. “Is it going to be easy for us to go to a World Cup again in the future?”

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“And will it ever be in our home, like driving to the light rail and just riding down here, having a place to stay? My wife and I would talk a lot about it because we were like, ‘We’ll go to a World Cup at some point,'” Skosky added. “But then it was just more of them being here and I’m like, gosh, it’s a big game. Like I think I would regret it if we didn’t get to go.”

Over and over again, fans said the same phrase when speaking about the chance to see the World Cup in the United States: “once-in-a-lifetime.”

“I saw the tickets, they were insane,” said Juan Olmeda, who had driven up with family from central Oregon ahead of the game against Australia. “But we gotta go.”

“World Cup in your stadium, home city, it might not happen again until I’m 70,” Seattle area resident Michael Pruitt told Yahoo Sports ahead of the USMNT’s Round of 16 game against Belgium on July 6. “It’s either now or never.”

Ahead of the 2026 World Cup, the cost to attend the tournament was a sticking point. Thanks to FIFA’s dynamic pricing model, match tickets were selling at ridiculously high prices — prices that made the tournament the most expensive edition ever.

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Some of the hardest-hit games were USMNT matches, with high demand to see the Stars and Stripes on home soil fueling sky-high prices. By growing the scale, FIFA bet fans would be willing to pay more, too — and for the most part, it was right.

When speaking to fans in and out of the stadium, that gamble paid off. Fans were truly willing to do anything if it meant seeing the USMNT play on home soil: pay thousands of dollars, fly across the country, follow all of FIFA’s extreme restrictions that seemed to be designed to nickel-and-dime consumers.

‘Might as well see our team’

In the months before the tournament kicked off, seeing get-in prices at thousands of dollars for nosebleed seats raised questions about who would be willing to pay to attend. Critics of the pricing predicted empty seats, especially in group stage games with opponents from smaller countries, which qualified as part of the expanded 48-team field — another move criticized as a cash grab from FIFA.

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And yet the expansion of the field was successful, and incredibly fun. And the stadiums were nowhere near empty: Earlier in July, FIFA estimated stadiums were occupied at 99.7% capacity on average through the Round of 16.

Part of FIFA’s big bet was that fans would be drawn to games hosted by popular U.S. cities, held in massive NFL stadiums. That bet applied to Americans as well, with many of the USMNT fans flying cross-country to see their team play.

At the two U.S. games in Seattle, Yahoo Sports spoke to fans who had flown in for a 48-hour trip, or woken up at the crack of dawn to drive to the stadium from out of state. Many had chosen this route because they didn’t live close to other host cities. But there was also a sense that if they were going to spend the money, these USMNT fans wanted to see their team play in the World Cup.

Before the Australia match, the Line family — Justin, Krista and their youngest son Mike — flew out from Ohio. Though they’d considered staying a little closer to home (Philadelphia, their nearest host city, was an eight-hour drive), the decision to see the U.S. play was a no-brainer.

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“Might as well see our team, versus go to another city and see another team,” Justin said. “If we’re gonna spend thousands of dollars to go see someone else play, we might as well enjoy it.”

For USMNT-Belgium, Ashleigh and Steve Behnke took their four boys from Kentucky to Seattle to see the U.S. play in person — something they knew would be steep. Without any World Cup games in their backyard, the Behnkes had been looking for tickets to fly out for a potential U.S. game.

After floating the France-Paraguay matchup on July 4 in Philadelphia, they finally settled on the Round of 16, specifically to see the USMNT. Technically, though, they had bought their tickets before the U.S. had officially beaten Bosnia and Herzegovina to advance: “We were really holding our breath,” Ashleigh admitted.

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Ashleigh estimated they had spent around $30,000 for hospitality tickets, which comes with additional perks, because “that’s what was left.” (She did not clarify whether travel and accommodations factored into the cost.)

But she chose to see it as a family trip, celebrating milestones (one son graduating college, another about to graduate high school) with the special experience of seeing the U.S. play in a high-stakes matchup.

“This is like a trip to Europe, and to have it, and really to be able to share it with our boys,” Ashleigh said, “to have the shared experience, you know, you just can’t trade that.”

The chance to witness history

FIFA has long capitalized on the understanding that every game in the World Cup is more than just a game. The experience of seeing the tournament in person is something coveted and sacred; whether you’re a fan of the team or not, you are part of something that people ache to be part of. And, importantly, you are surrounded by people who are just as excited to be there as you are.

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When speaking to Yahoo Sports, Alexandria Drake and Amber Gopher addressed the deeper layers involved in the World Cup. The two, both local to the Seattle area, met in line before the USMNT took on Belgium in the Round of 16, and began chatting like old friends.

Drake, who attended two of the games in Seattle and drove up to Vancouver for another, said that she had really enjoyed meeting strangers throughout the tournament. She had met people from all over the world — and in her own backyard, in the case of Gopher — while waiting in line.

“I feel like this summer has lifted, there’s like a lightness that I feel like, I don’t know, I think was needed. I feel like things were looking pretty grim,” she said.

That lightness is part of a larger conversation about what the World Cup has brought to the tournament would end up being all about printing money for FIFA.

As it worked out, for fans going to games in person, the sacrifice was worth it for what was offered by the larger experience. And especially for USMNT fans, it offered a chance at seeing what some are hoping is the next step in growing soccer fandom in the U.S.

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Both Drake and Gopher chose to attend the U.S.-Belgium match solo, since neither of their partners wanted to pay the high costs for tickets. Drake paid just $600 for a ticket the day before, in what she suspected was “a flukey thing”; Gopher paid $3,000 for hers after the U.S. advanced to the Round of 16. Despite the disparity in ticket price, both were similarly excited about what that day could offer.

“I knew they were going to come here and I thought, ‘Oh, man, I would love to be there because it’s history.’ I just wanted to be there and witness it because I don’t think I’ll ever do this again,” Gopher said. “I dipped into the savings for this one, but it’s worth it.”

“I’m hoping this is the start of a new era,” Drake said of the USMNT. “Just super cool to be here.”

That new era of the USMNT is still in progress. The U.S. joined its co-hosts, Canada and Mexico, in falling in the Round of 16, and just like that, FIFA lost the home soil advantage of getting fans to pay big: Ticket prices for the remaining knockout games dropped after the three hosts washed out.

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The dip didn’t last too long, and by the end, the World Cup final ended up being one of the most expensive sporting events ever. Get-in prices before the game were at $7,444, with tickets going as high as $39,704 before kickoff. But for many of those fans, dropping thousands to see Spain defeat Argentina was worth it.

That’s how you end up with people like Dana Garner and Craig Campbell, two more Seattle locals at the USMNT’s group stage game, who knew from the beginning that they would be embracing the chance to see the World Cup in their backyard.

“We were always coming,” Garner said. “It’s just one of those things you’ve gotta do.”