Should Vancouver get into the ticket resale business in a bid to cut down the costs of hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup?
It’s a question being floated as the City of Toronto debates the concept of buying up hospitality packages and then selling them to corporations to offset its own tournament costs.
Toronto’s FIFA budget is set at $380 million for the six games it is hosting.
A City of Toronto subcommittee has now recommended the municipality buy its allotment of tickets for seats, lounges and suites to flip for a profit. The city is looking at spending up to $11 million on the program.
Sharon Bollenbach, executive director of the 2026 FIFA World Cup Toronto Secretariat, said the city would be buying “hospitality assets” that FIFA is offering, and which would be snapped up for resale by outside groups if the city didn’t buy them.
“It’s things like suites, access to lounges, some tickets, all bundled maybe in different ways, shapes and forms,” she said.
“This isn’t about the City of Toronto purchasing a bunch of tickets and standing on the street corner selling tickets. This is very much about a hospitality program that is very common to sporting events.”
With Vancouver’s FIFA bill expected to come in at at least $581 million for seven matches, the question is whether the city might consider a similar idea.
No one from FIFA Vancouver or Vancouver’s ABC council majority would agree to an interview on the subject.
In a statement, the city said it “has not made any ticket or hospitality purchases at this point in time and (is) still assessing that opportunity.”
Vancouver Green Coun. Pete Fry said there is a logic to trying to recoup costs for a major event like the World Cup.
But he said he had major concerns about transparency around any tickets that the city gets.
“I don’t think we should be going into this with the expectation that we are going to make extra money and this is a revenue generator, rather … what can we best do with those tickets? It should be transparent, it should be fair, it should be equitable,” Fry said.
“I want to see where those tickets are going — I would hate to find out after the fact that certain people got tickets because of who they are or who they know.”
Fry said he’d be more interested in seeing tickets distributed to people who might not otherwise be able to attend a FIFA game than sold at a profit.
Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation B.C. director Carson Binda said using ticket resales to reduce the city’s exposure to the event’s cost could be a good solution if handled properly.
“This is a slippery slope, so it’s good that the city is looking to find some ways to offset the costs in Toronto,” he said.
“The city of Vancouver should absolutely be at ways of offsetting the cost, but they need to make sure that ticket re-sales are done responsibly and in a way that benefits community members.”
Vancouver will host its first World Cup match in just under 15 months, on Saturday, June 13, 2026.
An Angus Reid Institute poll last year found that just 21 per cent of British Columbians believe hosting the event will be worth the cost, while 60 per cent said it wouldn’t be.