The USMNT’s emphatic 4-1 win over Paraguay in its World Cup opener has sent ticket prices for its next two group-stage games soaring on resale sites, with demand for player merchandise also spiking sharply.
The U.S. will have to wait a week for its second match, next Friday in Seattle against Australia. On third-party resale platforms like StubHub and SeatGeek, the get-in price for that game rose above $1,800 late Friday night, according to reports.
That’s nearly six times the Category 3 price set by FIFA.
Earlier this week, the cheapest available ticket was hovering around $1,000. As of Saturday morning, the price for their third group match at SoFi Stadium against Turkey on June 25 had risen by 66% compared to three days earlier.
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The opener itself began with thunderous chants of “U-S-A” and climaxed with what some described as the best 45 minutes in U.S. men’s World Cup history. It was seven years and 364 days in the making, and it was worth every day, hour, second of waiting, according to one account.
No one could have realistically envisioned this.
A rousing win over Paraguay, patriotic glee on the field and in the stands, silky soccer and eruptions of noise. The team’s performance was more than a near-perfect start to this home World Cup.
With this phenomenal match, the Americans also look like they’ve arrived.
This production, this confidence, this dominance — it was nothing like the vast majority of the Americans’ previous performances on the international stage, reporters noted.
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Balogun jerseys on backorder after two-goal performance
After Folarin Balogun’s standout performance in the opener.
His jerseys are on backorder until early July. On Nike’s website, his red-and-white-striped home shirt is sold out, with limited stock of his dark blue away shirt still available.
His home jersey is available in limited sizes on Dick’s Sporting Goods’ website.
It carries a notification that the shirt is “selling fast” with 300 purchased in the last 24 hours. In that same period, 18 of his soccer cards have sold for $500 or more on eBay.
The surge in demand reflects a broader shift in perceptions of the squad.
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For years, they struggled to capture the imagination of casual American sports fans. Friday’s performance changed that calculus, at least for now.
Whether the side can sustain this momentum remains an open question.
Australia and Turkey will present different tactical challenges, and the pressure of playing a home World Cup with heightened expectations is something this group hasn’t experienced before.
But for the moment, the numbers tell a clear story. Fans are willing to pay a premium to be in the stands, and they’re buying whatever merchandise they can find. That’s a tangible measure of belief in a team that, until Friday, had given them little reason to spend so freely.