World Cup Fans Spent Up to $150,000 to Attend Matches in 2025
Attendees at World Cup games near New York revealed wildly varying budgets, from $2,500 to $150,000, and nearly all called it money well spent.
The range of spending among World Cup fans making their way to MetLife Stadium this summer underscores just how differently people value a once-in-a-generation sporting experience. Fans interviewed outside New York's Penn Station by CNBC Make It reported budgets spanning from roughly $2,500 on the modest end to a staggering $150,000 for those pulling out all the stops — a gap that reflects everything from ticket-tier differences to international travel costs and luxury hospitality packages.
What makes those figures notable is not just their scale but the near-universal sentiment attached to them: attendees said the expense was worth it. That kind of consumer conviction is meaningful context in an era of persistent cost-of-living pressure, suggesting that for a significant segment of sports fans, live marquee events occupy a spending category entirely their own — immune, at least emotionally, to the usual scrutiny applied to discretionary purchases.
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The World Cup's return to the United States, co-hosted with Canada and Mexico, has concentrated enormous economic activity around host cities. MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is one of the premier venues, drawing fans from dozens of countries who factor in flights, hotels, dining, and merchandise on top of face-value or secondary-market ticket prices. For international visitors especially, the trip functions more like a destination vacation built around soccer than a simple night out.
The disparity between the lowest and highest reported budgets — a factor of sixty — points to the tournament's unusually broad demographic reach. Unlike the Super Bowl, which skews heavily toward corporate and high-net-worth attendees, the World Cup attracts a genuinely global cross-section of fans, many of whom save for years to follow their national team. That mix of grassroots passion and premium spending is part of what makes the event a singular economic phenomenon in global sports.
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