Less than six percent of $98 tickets have been purchased for round-trip New Jersey Transit trains to MetLife Stadium during the FIFA World Cup.A spokesperson for NJ Transit told The Athletic that as of Monday, May 31 at 5pm, only 17,739 tickets have been sold across the entirety of the eight game-days scheduled to take place at MetLife Stadium during the World Cup.This is 5.5 percent of the total 320,000 inventory. During a media briefing in April, a World Cup transportation plan for New York and New Jersey forecast that 40,000 people per game would travel by NJ Transit rail to MetLife Stadium, which holds 82,500 people.The matches will be played across five weeks, beginning with Brazil vs Morocco on June 13 — and culminating in the World Cup final on July 19.Organizers have been encouraging soccer fans to buy tickets in advance of the games. It will not be possible for fans to buy physical tickets at New York Pennsylvania station on the day of the game, due to FIFA’s security perimeter outside of the transit hub. Fans will be able to buy tickets via the NJ Transit app, which yesterday rolled out a new feature which places World Cup tickets at the top of the page.The price of NJ Transit tickets have been a source of controversy since mid-April when The Athletic first revealed that the agency was planning to charge over $100 for the round trip, which usually costs $12.90, before we revealed later that same week a price of $150 had in fact been decided. Despite announcing the $150 price, NJ Transit then cut the price to $98 after a sharp backlash from FIFA, fans and local politicians, though the cost remains over seven times as expensive as the usual $12.90 for the trip.Speaking to The Athletic on Monday evening, senior NJ Transit sources remained bullish about the agency’s plan, insisting there is no contingency plan to reduce prices to drive sales. They said their commitment was to prepare for 40,000 people per game and it continues to be so. A full team operations call took place on Monday.New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill directed NJ Transit to ensure ordinary New Jersey commuters would not carry the burden of the cost, meaning the cited $48 million cost of World Cup-related services to the agency would be transferred to World Cup ticket-holders rather than local taxpayers.There is an alternative to NJ Transit: a bus shuttle service organized by the New York/New Jersey World Cup host committee for a limited number of fans.The committee had previously committed to providing 10,000 bus seats for fans travelling to games at MetLife, but increased its inventory by hiring classic American yellow school buses. The inventory will vary between 12,000 on schooldays and 18,000 on non-school days, based on availability of school buses.As of Monday afternoon, around 32,000 tickets had been sold for the bus service out of 126,000 seats in total, and sales are averaging out at around or over 50 percent for the opening three matches. Organizers believe that New York/New Jersey is a naturally late-buying transit market and they expect the bus service to sell out as the games become closer.School buses will be utilised to get World Cup fans to MetLife Stadium (Mario Tama/Getty Images)The host committee originally announced an $80 round trip bus service from locations in New York City to MetLife Stadium, but then slashed the cost by 75 per cent, reducing the fare for fans from $80 to $20 during the tournament.New York State, led by Gov. Kathy Hochul, invested $6 million to help bring down prices, and fans who have already purchased $80 tickets will receive $60 refunds to bring their ticket cost down to $20. As a condition of the investment, Hochul told The Athletic that “around 20 percent” of bus tickets will be reserved exclusively for New York state residents who have purchased match tickets, ensuring the funding brings value to local taxpayers.Justin Brannan, Gov. Hochul’s senior director of major event operations, said: “Lowering costs always makes sense, and we love to see New Yorkers and fans from around the globe taking advantage of the affordable shuttle bus service. Governor Hochul is doing everything she can to make this once-in-a-generation event accessible and affordable for all.”The importance of the rail and bus service is increased during the World Cup because, while there are ordinarily 23,000 parking spaces for cars available at MetLife Stadium, this number will be vastly lower during the tournament due to security demands and the FIFA perimeter for the games. As of Monday, less than 10,000 parking places across the eight games had been purchased.It all begs the question as to how, exactly, fans are currently planning travelling to games, with the transportation plan in April anticipating only 6,000 fans would travel by ride share options, with just over 20,000 per game being commercial-organized travel for FIFA-related hospitality, partners, VIPs and affiliates. Organizers will be hoping that fans are simply waiting until closer to the event to purchase tickets, with many soccer fans ordinarily accustomed to buying tickets at stations on gameday.Initially, host cities signed up to provide free public transportation for World Cup ticketholders, as was the case at the men’s World Cup in Qatar in 2022 and at the European Championship in Germany in 2024. However, in 2023, this was renegotiated to allow cities to provide at-cost services. Yet nobody at FIFA foresaw that those prices would spiral as dramatically as they did in New York and New Jersey in April.Elsewhere, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) quadrupled its usual prices for a round-trip train ticket from the center of Boston to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro during the 2026 World Cup.A return ticket to and from the stadium will cost $80 from train stations in the center of Boston for the 27-mile journey to Foxboro.There is inventory for 20,000 people per game and tickets are currently only on sale for the five group stage matches, with the two knockout round games to go on sale later this month. An MBTA spokesperson told The Athletic on Monday afternoon that 41,342 tickets had been sold of the 100,000 available for group matches.The Boston host committee is also providing a bus service for $95 per round-trip ticket, aiming to serve 10,000 people per game. They did not respond when asked by The Athletic to detail the number of bus tickets sold so far.