That is the premise behind EquitX. Before tickets are allocated, a fan can state a budget and quantity, while the organizer sets the inventory and conditions of sale. EquitX considers those requests together when tickets are allocated.
In this note, a match means one tournament fixture and a category means FIFA's seating tier within that fixture. Each match-category pair is one market. With 104 matches and Categories 1–4, the dataset contains 416 standard markets. Seven have complete organizer prices for every modeled sales phase and form the replay sample.
We first measured completed sales on StubHub and Viagogo. We then replayed those seven markets twice: once using FIFA's posted prices for each sales phase and once under the EquitX design. For the replay, each eligible one-ticket sale stands in for a fan request at the sale's reported value. Both versions use the same requests and organizer inventory; only the allocation approach changes.
What we find
Across 350,549 completed StubHub and Viagogo sales, we document more than $768 million in resale receipts.1 For the matched Category 1–4 quantities, that is $372 million more than the same tickets would have totaled at FIFA's initial prices.12 In the replay of seven match-category markets, the EquitX design produces 29.9% more modeled organizer revenue than the same replay using FIFA's posted prices for each sales phase.
Match 104, the Final, drives the modeled result. EquitX clears all three categories at a lower price while producing more organizer revenue. More reconstructed fan requests clear; the model is not simply charging each successful fan more.
From completed sales to the replay sample
We worked from completed transactions, not live listings. The dataset contains 350,549 sales on StubHub and Viagogo: 770,965 ticket units covering all 104 FIFA World Cup 2026™ matches. Every transaction value used in this note is reported in USD.1
To compare like with like, we matched 313,355 Category 1–4 transactions covering 691,096 ticket units. The replay then narrows to the seven markets with complete organizer-price histories. Missing histories are not imputed.
What appeared in resale
The platforms in our dataset account for more than $768 million in completed resale receipts. That is a coverage figure, not an estimate of the whole market. Other platforms, private transfers and broker networks sit outside the data.
Within the matched Cat1–Cat4 sample, the same quantities generated about $670 million in resale receipts. At FIFA's initial organizer prices, those quantities produce a benchmark of about $299 million.2 The difference is roughly $372 million.
That gap needs careful reading. It is not reseller profit or money FIFA necessarily left on the table. It compares value realized in completed resale transactions with a common initial organizer-price benchmark for the same match-category quantities. Resale can improve allocation, but it can also create brokerage rents and costly competition for those rents.4
Observed value by tournament stage
The same quantities, valued in two markets
| Stage | Observed resale receipts | Initial FIFA benchmark | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group stage | $328 million | $160 million | +$168 million |
| Round of 32 | $110 million | $37 million | +$73 million |
| Round of 16 | $83 million | $26 million | +$57 million |
| Quarterfinals | $51 million | $25 million | +$26 million |
| Semifinals | $31 million | $17 million | +$14 million |
| Third place | $7 million | $5 million | +$2 million |
| Final | $57 million | $28 million | +$29 million |
How EquitX changes the allocation sequence
Tickets expire when the event starts. That makes a pricing error hard to undo. Queues, page views and abandoned checkouts offer clues, but none says what a fan is actually prepared to spend. With posted prices, the organizer has to make that call before the strongest demand information has been expressed. If the price misses the market, discovery still happens, only later and somewhere else.
FIFA described its 2026 approach as variable pricing, rather than automatic dynamic pricing. Prices could change between sales phases after a review of demand and availability. FIFA said the goal was to optimize revenue and attendance while seeking fair market value.3 EquitX asks for budgets earlier, while the organizer can still use them. Prices do not need to move from phase to phase simply to reveal where demand sits.
Counterfactual: using budgets before allocation
To keep the comparison controlled, we changed as little as possible. Each eligible one-ticket transaction becomes one reconstructed fan request at its reported value. We round that value to the production price increment and place the request in its modeled clearing period. Both policies receive the same requests and, within each paired run, the same organizer inventory.
This is a rerun of observed transactions, not a reconstruction of the full demand curve. We do not infer demand from fans who never transacted or fill price histories that we did not observe.
Across those seven markets, FIFA's phase-posted path produces $6.85 million in model-implied organizer revenue. Under the EquitX design and initial reserve, revenue reaches $8.89 million. That is a difference of $2.05 million, or 29.9%.
Four runs isolate two separate choices.
The reserve policy determines how much inventory can clear. The allocation design determines how the expressed budgets are used.
| Run | Reserve | Units | Revenue | vs. baseline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FIFA phase-postedObserved policy | Phase-specific | 1,046 | $6.85M | Baseline |
| EquitX design | Phase-specific | 1,046 | $7.50M | +9.5% |
| Posted-price path | Initial held | 1,427 | $5.74M | −16.2% |
| EquitX design | Initial held | 1,427 | $8.89M | +29.9% |
The Final shows where the difference comes from
Match 104, the Final, accounts for almost the entire aggregate difference. Category 1 makes the pattern easy to see: the modeled clearing price falls from $10,521 to $8,666, cleared units rise from 127 to 288 and organizer revenue moves from $1.34 million to $2.50 million. Category 2 follows the same pattern.
Breaking the result apart shows why. The lower price costs the organizer $0.82 million. Additional volume contributes $2.77 million, while periods in which just one policy clears add $0.09 million. Volume more than offsets price.
Match 104 / Final
Lower price, more cleared units, higher modeled revenue
Clearing price
Units cleared
Organizer revenue
| Category | FIFA phase-posted | EquitX design |
|---|---|---|
| Cat1 | $1.34 million | $2.50 million |
| Cat2 | $2.09 million | $2.96 million |
| Cat3 | $3.38 million | $3.39 million |
What the study measures and what it does not
Readers should keep two ledgers. The first records what happened: matched resale value was $372 million above one initial-price benchmark. The second records what the seven-market replay produced: a 29.9% difference. One is observed, the other modeled. We neither add them together nor scale the replay to the tournament.
Scope and limitations
- Coverage. The $768 million is documented on StubHub and Viagogo. Private transfers, broker networks, regional marketplaces and other platforms are outside the dataset, so the figure is a coverage floor rather than an estimate of total market size.1
- Benchmark. The $372 million is the gross value difference for matched Cat1–Cat4 quantities. It is not resale profit, foregone FIFA revenue or an estimate of value EquitX would necessarily capture.12
- Category mapping. The source mapping leaves 5.93% of records unmapped and 3.63% ambiguous. Those records do not enter the matched benchmark.
- Budget proxy. The replay treats an eligible completed one-ticket transaction as one reconstructed fan request at its reported value. It does not identify unique people or observe fans who did not transact.
- Modeled support. Only seven match-category markets have complete organizer-price histories. Match 104 (Final) accounts for 94.3% of observations and 99.9% of the aggregate modeled revenue difference.
- Price basis. The primary-price data do not resolve whether the listed organizer prices include checkout fees.2
- No tournament-wide extrapolation. Actual FIFA match-category quantities and revenue are not observed.
What changes when demand is visible earlier
What stands out in the data is not only the size of the resale receipts. It is when the price signal arrives. The World Cup makes that delay visible, but football is not special. Whenever supply is fixed and resale is active, discovery can happen after the organizer's allocation is done.
At that point, arguing over the right posted price is beside the point. EquitX moves the signal upstream. Fans state budgets before release, the organizer sees usable demand and every request keeps a hard cap.
For context, FIFA announced USD 871 million for the 48 Participating Member Associations and a USD 355 million Club Benefits Programme for clubs releasing players.56 Nothing in this replay tells FIFA how to spend another dollar. We do not pretend it does. The claim is simpler: a dollar captured before resale is still a dollar the organizer controls.
Why this matters to us
We are not arguing that FIFA's leadership should retain more revenue. The value currently migrating to resale, largely captured by intermediaries rather than the event itself, could instead reach the people who make these tournaments possible: groundskeepers, stadium staff, volunteers and the wider football ecosystem FIFA already funds through programs like the ones above. That reallocation is a choice for organizers to make, not something this study can dictate. It is the outcome we would like to see more of.
Disclosure. Independent research by EquitX Markets. EquitX Markets is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by FIFA. FIFA World Cup 2026™ is used solely to identify the tournament studied. FIFA and FIFA World Cup marks are owned by FIFA.
Data availability. The underlying EquitX datasets and detailed methodology are available from EquitX Markets upon reasonable request.
Footnotes
- EquitX Markets. FIFA World Cup 2026™ StubHub and Viagogo completed-sales dataset and processing protocol, August 2026. Available upon reasonable request.
- EquitX Markets. FIFA World Cup 2026™ organizer-price panel and methodology, August 2026. Available upon reasonable request.
- FIFA. How does FIFA determine ticket prices for the FIFA World Cup 2026™? FIFA World Cup 2026™ ticketing support, updated 19 July 2026.
- Leslie, P. and Sorensen, A. (2014). “Resale and Rent-Seeking: An Application to Ticket Markets.” Review of Economic Studies, 81(1), 266–300.
- FIFA Council (2026). FIFA Council increases record financial distribution to all 48 Participating Member Associations at the FIFA World Cup 2026™. FIFA, 28 April 2026.
- FIFA (2026). FIFA shares details on landmark Club Benefits Programme for FIFA World Cup 2026™. FIFA, 5 June 2026.