June 4 – Less than six percent of $98 round-trip NJ Transit tickets to MetLife Stadium during the World Cup have been sold, raising serious questions about how exactly hundreds of thousands of fans intend to get to the games.
According to figures provided to The Athletic, just 17,739 of 320,000 available tickets had been sold as of Monday, May 31, which translates into 5.5 percent of the inventory across the eight match days. The original transportation plan in April projected 40,000 fans per game travelling to MetLife via NJ Transit.
Pricing has been the running controversy. The standard fare for the trip is $12.90. After plans for a $150 round trip leaked in April, prompting backlash from FIFA, fans, and local politicians, NJ Transit settled on $98, which is still over seven times the regular cost. Senior NJ Transit sources told The Athletic that prices will not be cut, with the $48 million in World Cup-related service costs being passed to ticket-holders rather than local taxpayers, at Governor Mikie Sherrill’s instruction.
The bus shuttle alternative is performing better. After New York Governor Kathy Hochul invested $6 million to slash fares from $80 to $20, around 32,000 of 126,000 seats had been sold, with the first three matches running at over 50 percent. Hochul’s office reserved 20 percent of bus tickets exclusively for New York state residents.
Parking will be sharply curtailed by FIFA’s security perimeter, leaving rail and bus as the principal options. Fewer than 10,000 parking spaces had sold across the eight games as of Monday.
Which raises the most uncomfortable question of all: what happens when 40,000 England fans or any travelling support simply decide the fare isn’t worth it and jump the turnstiles?
It is a long-standing tradition for travelling football fans to vote with their feet on overpriced transit. Are New Jersey transit police really going to detain tens of thousands of supporters at Penn Station for fare evasion on the day the Three Lions play Panama?
Of course not. NJ Transit may be holding the line on price. The fans, in numbers far too large to police, may simply decide to hold their own.
Contact the writer of this story, Nick Webster, at [email protected]