An expanded Club World Cup marked by empty seats, slashed ticket prices, searing heat, weather-delayed matches and a criticized field surface ended in a surprise victory by Chelsea, the fourth-best team in the Premier League.
Among the lasting lessons was FIFA’s decision to dramatically drop ticket costs as some kickoff times approached, which could impact decisions by fans thinking of attending next year’s World Cup. FIFA lowered the cost to attend the Chelsea-Fluminense semifinal at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, to $13.40 from $473.90, then dropped the Chelsea-Paris Saint-Germain final from $330 to $199.60.
There will be 104 matches at next year’s expanded 48-nation World Cup and many are likely to be on weekday afternoons. FIFA has not said whether it will use dynamic pricing and refused to comment on discounting.
The 63 matches drew 2.49 million, about 62% of the listed capacity. FIFA refused to disclose tournament capacities of venues, focusing on tickets sold rather than about 1.5 million unfilled seats, and would not address price cuts.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino assessed the expanded tournament he championed, saying: “it is already most successful club competition in the world.”
Former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp was less enthusiastic, telling the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag it was “the worst idea ever implemented in football” because of demands on players as a result of the extended season.
PSG played its 65th competitive match and Chelsea its 64th since starting in mid-August. Each team will have 33-35 days off before 2025-26 openers.
“I told my players that I had the feeling that this competition will become just as important or even more important than the Champions League,” Chelsea manager Enzo Maresco said.
Maresca called the heat dangerous. Borussia Dortmund coach Niko Kovač said the grass at MetLife Stadium, site of next year’s World Cup final, was so short “it’s more a golf green, so you can putt here.”
The streaming service DAZN bought world rights and sublicensed 24 of the 63 matches to TNT Sports, which averaged 418,000 viewers for the first 23 matches with English-language commentary on TNT, TBS and truTV. Seventeen matches sublicensed to TelevisaUnivision with Spanish commentary averaged 551,000.
By comparison, NBC’s networks averaged 510,000 viewers per match window for the Premier League in 2024-25, regular-season Major League Baseball is averaging 1,841,000 this year on Fox and 1.74 million on the cable network ESPN. The NFL averaged 17.5 million during the 2024 regular season.
DAZN has not yet released figures but says it will during the week.
Temperature was over 90 degrees (32 Celsius) for many matches, with humidity that made it feel more than 100 (38).
“Honestly, the heat is incredible,” Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez said. “Playing in this temperature is very dangerous.”
Six games were delayed by weather for a total of 8 hours, 29 minutes, raising questions over the suitability of the U.S. for next year’s World Cup during a time of global warming. Only four of the 11 U.S. World Cup venues have roofs, and including one that isn’t temperature controlled.
