World Cup parking for $300? FIFA promoting spots at L.A. video games for greater than tickets

The Athletic has dwell protection of the most recent information for the 2026 World Cup. 

FIFA is promoting parking passes at 2026 World Cup video games in Los Angeles for $250 or $300 per matchday and per spot — greater than the worth of some precise match tickets.

The passes are for parking areas greater than a mile away from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., in keeping with listings on FIFA’s “official World Cup 2026 parking website.”

SoFi will host eight World Cup matches, together with the U.S. group’s opener and a quarterfinal. For these two matches, a single parking spot is priced at $300. For the opposite six, together with Iran vs. New Zealand and the third U.S. group match, a cross prices $250. (A Category 3 ticket to a few of these matches prices $140 or $180.)

A FIFA spokesperson, when requested to justify the costs, advised The Athletic that “parking prices are determined based on local market conditions and benchmarking against comparable major events previously held in each host city.”

The $250 spots seem like in or close to the “VIP West Garage” on the Intuit Dome, the Los Angeles Clippers basketball enviornment, which is simply outdoors SoFi Stadium’s Hollywood Park campus. FIFA’s parking web site, which is operated by SimplyPark, estimates that the stroll from parking spot to stadium would take 21 minutes, although the precise size would depend upon safety checkpoints, entrances and different components.

For Clippers games, parking within the storage prices $56.50; and for the upcoming NBA All-Star Game, it prices $88.

At Los Angeles Rams NFL video games, parking cost $71 per game in 2025 for many who purchased season passes in tons straight adjoining to SoFi Stadium.

Those stadium-adjacent tons, nonetheless, are unlikely to be open to fan parking at World Cup matches, and can probably be inside safety perimeters. Some may very well be used for hospitality, sponsor activations or different operations. That would be the case at most, if not all, 2026 World Cup venues — there are 16 in complete throughout the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

“The stadium footprint is going to look a lot different,” Lindsey Douglas, the chief working officer of Kansas City’s World Cup host committee, stated final month.

Parking areas, due to this fact, will probably be comparatively scarce. At Kansas City Chiefs NFL video games, by comparability, there are usually round 20,000 areas surrounding Arrowhead Stadium and the neighboring baseball stadium. But for Kansas City’s World Cup video games, solely 4,000 areas will probably be “available for sale for ticket holders,” Douglas stated.

Parking outdoors Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, which is able to host six 2026 World Cup matches (Kirby Lee / Getty Images)

FIFA is basically capitalizing on that shortage, not not like NFL groups and different U.S. sports activities franchises do weekly, however to a unique diploma.

The Los Angeles parking passes at the moment are the most expensive, however costs in different cities additionally shocked followers when revealed in November. Passes have now been made accessible at seven of the 11 U.S. stadiums. The minimal worth — for group-stage matches at Arrowhead in Kansas City, AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta — is $75. That’s greater than the price of a Category 3 group-stage ticket on the final males’s World Cup, held in Qatar in 2022.

In Miami, the minimal parking worth was additionally $75 in November, however FIFA has since raised it to $100 — for group video games involving Uruguay, Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde.

For Colombia vs. Portugal and Scotland vs. Brazil in Miami — and for some video games in different cities, together with all seven at Gillette Stadium close to Boston — the parking passes are listed as “sold out,” however the FIFA spokesperson stated: “As planning continues and details are finalized, additional inventory is expected to be made available. As a result, listings currently marked as ‘sold out’ do not necessarily reflect final availability.”

Lots to think about

Miami is one among a number of host cities the place transportation to and from World Cup video games may very well be a logistical nightmare. It was harrowing for some followers at Hard Rock Stadium and different venues throughout final summer time’s Club World Cup.

That, partly, is as a result of many U.S. metropolitan areas lack the general public transit infrastructure that sports activities followers in Europe and elsewhere usually use. Some stadiums are additionally inconveniently situated. Americans, due to this fact, have grown accustomed to driving to video games. Some purchase passes prematurely, however many drive to stadiums and pay on the entrance to a lot on the day of a sport.

At the World Cup, although, that gained’t be straightforward. A World Cup “customer guide” printed by SimplyPark, FIFA’s associate for the sale and administration of parking, says that “all parking must be purchased in advance.” The FIFA spokesperson clarified that “in advance” means “no later than 24 hours before kickoff,” and “strongly encouraged” followers to “finalize their transportation plans in advance and, where available, consider mass transit options to help ensure a smooth arrival.”

Lots outdoors FIFA’s purview — equivalent to these run by native institutions or residents — might supply day-of parking, however they’re typically removed from stadiums, and may very well be costly, per primary rules of provide and demand.

Even the passes that FIFA is promoting will probably be for tons outdoors safety perimeters, the FIFA spokesman confirmed.

In addition to public transit, which varies from city to city, native World Cup host committees will supply different companies. Kansas City’s, for instance, will lease greater than 200 buses and run shuttles from a number of areas across the area to Arrowhead Stadium on matchdays. They, too, will cost followers a price for parking spots at these “park-and-ride” areas. (The price may also cowl shuttle service.) It’s unclear if different cities — a lot of that are struggling to stability budgets whereas FIFA monopolizes the World Cup’s income — will present related companies, whether or not free or paid.

In Qatar, the place the federal government was prepared to spend billions of {dollars} to stage the 2022 World Cup, followers might experience Doha’s metro and buses free.

In North America, hardly something will probably be free. Longtime followers have advised The Athletic that 2026 will probably be “by far” the most costly World Cup ever, “in every sense.” And FIFA will revenue. FIFA president Gianni Infantino stated final week that the match will yield $11 billion.

In 2022, there have been loads of spirited subway scenes, like these involving Ghana followers, as ticket holders might use free public transportation on the World Cup. (Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP / Getty Images)

There’s a secondary marketplace for parking, too

Parking will probably be a comparatively small piece of the big monetary pie, however it can contribute to the general value of attendance.

In Philadelphia, group-stage parking prices $115. For knockout matches, costs rise, as much as $200 or $225 at Atlanta’s semifinal — for parking in tons close to Centennial Olympic Park, roughly half a mile from the stadium.

FIFA has constantly justified its costs — for tickets and different issues — by noting that it reinvests a lot of the cash in soccer growth globally.

In the continuing debate over ticket costs, it has additionally pointed to the secondary market, the place followers are reselling tickets at considerably greater costs than FIFA’s.

That is the case for parking passes, too. On StubHub, as of final Thursday, the most cost effective parking cross for Portugal vs. Colombia was $220. For Morocco vs. Brazil, it was $232 — regardless that FIFA isn’t but promoting parking at that sport’s venue, MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (The “New York New Jersey” web page on FIFA’s SimplyPark website, together with pages for Houston, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, say that parking availability is “coming soon” or stays “to be determined.”)

It’s unclear whether or not, or how, FIFA has tried to limit the resale of parking passes or forestall scalpers from shopping for passes.

The web site features a observe: “IMPORTANT: Only match ticket holders are eligible to purchase parking passes, and you must use the same email address that was used to purchase your match tickets. Parking passes may be cancelled if the email address used to buy parking does not match your ticket purchase email. Only 1 parking pass per customer per match is permitted.”

But it’s not clear when or how that restriction could be utilized, particularly in instances the place scalpers additionally purchase and resell tickets; instances the place the ticket holder purchased their ticket on a third-party website; or instances the place a fan attends a match because the visitor of a major ticket purchaser.

In response to this concern, the FIFA spokesperson wrote: “Parking passes may only be purchased using the email address associated with a ticket purchase made through www.fifa.com/tickets, including the FIFA Resale Platform. Each ticket holder may purchase one parking pass per match. On match day, fans will be required to present both their valid match ticket and parking pass to access parking areas.”

It’s additionally unclear what number of passes will probably be accessible at every stadium, and the place many of those $75-plus parking spots will probably be. Los Angeles and Atlanta present particular areas, however different listings mark the stadium and say that the parking area is “0 miles” away. A SimplyPark buyer assist consultant advised The Athletic through e mail in November that the “0 miles” is “just a placeholder. Parking lots and spaces will be allocated closer to the event date.”

The FIFA spokesperson, past confirming that spots will probably be outdoors safety perimeters, famous that plans have been nonetheless “evolving,” and wrote: “Additional details, including parking maps and operational layouts, will be shared in due course.”