When FIFA first put tickets on sale for the 2026 World Cup final, its prices left fans aghast. Many upper-deck seats cost $4,210; anything closer to the field was $6,730. In subsequent months, FIFA raised those prices, all the way to $10,990 in Category 1, and fans around the world howled.But on the eve of Sunday’s final, the secondary market makes those FIFA prices look like bargains.In fact, on some ticket resale sites, the 2026 World Cup final is on track to be the most expensive sporting event ever.Spokespeople for SeatGeek told The Athletic on Thursday that the average price of World Cup final tickets purchased on their site was $12,751, more than $2,000 higher than the previous record set by the 2024 Super Bowl.For that game, between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs in greater Las Vegas, the average resale price was $10,540. It retained the top spot in historical rankings despite the craze around the 2026 NBA Finals, when Game 3 between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs reached a $9,033 average resale price on SeatGeek.A spokesperson for StubHub said that demand for the World Cup final, for now, ranks slightly behind that 2024 Super Bowl and also behind Game 6 of the NBA Finals. But the latter never happened, because the Knicks clinched their title in five games.Weather concerns ahead of World Cup final | World Cup Daily Briefing Megan Feringa and Laura WilliamsonAnd when accounting for scale, the World Cup final stands alone, because it will be played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the NFL’s largest stadium. Its capacity, 80,663 for World Cup matches, is far greater than Allegiant Stadium’s 61,629 for the 2024 Super Bowl or Madison Square Garden’s 19,812, which “makes the World Cup price even more impressive,” Keith Pagello, who runs TicketData.com, told The Athletic.Pagello’s database tracks the “get-in price” — or cheapest available ticket — across various resale sites for all sorts of sporting events and concerts. The get-in price for Sunday’s match between Argentina and Spain was around $7,600 as of Thursday evening.That makes this World Cup final a more expensive ticket than: