Football
Tom VanHaaren, ESPN Staff Writer 5y

Ticket prices skyrocket for U.S.-France WC match

Ticket prices for the United States' quarterfinal match against France at the Women's World Cup are skyrocketing, with one seller listing a pair of tickets for more than $11,000 apiece on the secondary market.

The U.S. labored its way into the quarterfinals with a 2-1 win against Spain on Monday to set up a match against host France on Friday in what looks to be one of the more sought-after tickets in women's sports in recent years.

The least expensive ticket on the resale site StubHub.com is currently $295, while the most expensive one is listed at $11,398, with a number of tickets on sale in the $2,000-$3,000 range. The average ticket price is $335.

In comparison, the quarterfinal match on Thursday featuring Norway and England has tickets as low as $33, with the most expensive ticket costing $170.

"The Women's World Cup is seeing a significant uptick in interest, with sales doubling for the June 28th game, as the U.S. women's team continues to advance and prepares to face host country France in the quarterfinals," said Jill Krimmel, General Manager for Sports for StubHub. "Soccer is the most popular sport worldwide and we are pleased to see how the USA's performance is turning heads."

- FIFA Women's World Cup: All you need to know
- Full Women's World Cup fixtures schedule

The United States' match against France is set to take place at Parc des Princes in Paris, so it seems natural that tickets would be in demand, but the numbers listed for these tickets are abnormally high even given the location.

In fact, the prices for the quarterfinal with France are astronomically higher than ones for the United States' matches at the 2015 Women's World Cup. The Americans' quarterfinal match against China in 2015 had an average resale price of $165 on SeatGeek.com, with the highest prices coming in the final versus Japan at $368.

For further comparison outside of soccer, the most in-demand women's hockey ticket on SeatGeek.com was the 2013 matchup of the United States and Canada, which had an average resale price of $114. The 2015 US Open women's final in tennis between Flavia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci saw tickets priced at an average of $438 each.

While it was not an international event, SeatGeek.com had an average resale price of $280 for the women's 2014 NCAA national championship basketball game between Connecticut and Notre Dame.

The combination of the hosts playing in Paris against the pre-tournament favorite U.S., which has had strong traveling support in France this summer, seems to have created the perfect storm for ticket prices.

The popularity of this World Cup could also be a big factor.

On Saturday, after 36 matches had been played over 14 consecutive days, FIFA released some of its digital numbers from the tournament's group stage. The tournament saw 433 million views on the official FIFA Women's World Cup digital channels, gained 1.25 million new social media followers focused on women's soccer and had 6 million likes on Facebook.

In terms of ticket sales through FIFA itself, 1,094,639 tickets had been allocated as of Thursday, with 70 percent stadium occupancy and 11 sold-out matches, according to world soccer's governing body.

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