Late bargains: Ticket prices crashing for Canada's FIFA World Cup matches ahead of kickoff

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It looks like good things come to those who wait – or at least cheaper tickets for Canadian soccer fans.

With less than a week to go before the FIFA World Cup kicks off, it appears that ticket prices are crashing on resale markets – for some teams more than others.

Perhaps shockingly, the nation that has seen the resale prices for tickets to its group-stage decline the most over the past month is Canada.

According to ticketdata.com , a website that aggregates prices on verified resale sites as well as FIFA’s official ticket portal, Canada has seen the biggest drop of “get-in” prices over the past seven, 14 and 30 days.

The site lists the average low price to see one of Canada’s three group-stage games at $561 US. That number is down 11% over the past week, 12.7% over the past two weeks and a staggering 23.7% over the past 30.

In comparison, Scotland has seen the second-biggest drop over the past month at 15.7% and, over the past week, prices for seats to watch Haiti play have gone down 7%.

This isn’t just a matter of location, either. Canada’s two games being played in Vancouver – against Qatar and Switzerland – are the only two group-stage matches hosted at BC Place that have dropped in average price over the past two weeks.

What about other games in Toronto?

According to the Ticket Data, the average prices for all games played at BMO Field in Toronto is $578, which is up 2% over the past seven days and 6.8% over the past 14.

While Canada’s match against Bosnia and Herzegovina has been touted as a marquee event with pre-game festivities, the demand seemingly has crumbled compared to other matches to be played on the Exhibition Grounds.

The average get-in price for that match is $678, which has dropped by 22% over the past week and 36% over the past month.

It doesn’t seem to be about the cost, either, as the match between Germany and Cote d’Ivoire now has a low price of $920, which is up 29% over last week.

Why is this happening?

One of the most likely reasons behind this late crash in the ticket market may be fairly simple: Prices were too high to begin with.

Canada’s opener against Bosnia-Herzegovina still has hundreds of tickets unsold on FIFA’s official ticketing portal .

And with just over a week to go before the game on June 13, prices remain sky-high, with Category 1 seats listed at $3,135 CAD and Category 2 at $2,300. The so-called “cheap seats” in Category 3 are listed at $1,370 with just a handful available as of Wednesday afternoon.

On StubHub as of Wednesday afternoon , there were several upper-bowl tickets listed at just under $1,000 each.

Which teams have seen prices rise?

On the other end of the spectrum is a team that many wouldn’t expect to be in such high demand: Sweden.

Over the past seven days, the average get-in price for the three group-stage games featuring the Nordic nation have risen 11.3% and have gone up 39% over the past month.

The country with the highest average get-in price is one of the tournament’s three co-hosts, Mexico – by a wide margin. Mexico’s average low price of $1,805 US on resale markets is almost $400 more than second-place Portugal.

Next on the list are a trio of South American powers – Colombia, Brazil and Argentina.

Team USA, the third World Cup co-host, sits in eighth place at $903.

The countries with the lowest get-in prices are New Zealand and Iran, with both coming in at under $300 on their low ends.

Of the host cities, two in Mexico – Estadio Azteca in Mexico City and Guadalajara’s Estadio Akron – had the first and third highest average get-in prices at $1,338 and $1,170, respectively. In second place is Miami at $1,269.

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