World Cup Ticket Sales Announced
World Cup ’94 officials announced their plan Friday for the public sale of early-round tickets, and predicted that with demand high and ticket availability low, they would sell out in a matter of days.
Tickets will go on sale June 13 at 8 a.m. PDT, except in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Tickets in those cities will go on sale at 4 p.m. EDT on June 12, to accommodate fans who may be attending U.S. Cup ’93 matches at RFK Stadium and Soldier Field on June 13.
The first-come, first-served system of telephone sales will offer Stadium Series tickets, a strip of tickets for games in the first round and the round of 16. At the Rose Bowl, for example, that will include five games. A Stadium Series strip at the Rose Bowl will cost $355 for Category I tickets--the best seats--$245 for Category II and $140 for Category III.
Alan Rothenberg, World Cup chairman, said he expected tickets in smaller stadiums to sell out in one or two days. L.A. venue officials expect their tickets for the Rose Bowl--no specific number has been released--will sell out in a week or two.
The public sale will be an attempt to make up for the unfulfilled promise of the World Cup’s first phase of ticket sales, the private sale. In that sale, which ended in March, World Cup officials promised to fulfill all ticket requests from the “soccer family,” via telephone or mail. But many mail orders were never filled and many hard-core soccer fans went away angry.
Officials admitted to having been surprised by the overwhelming response to the private sale. About 450,000 tickets had been set aside for the sale, but officials drew tickets from a variety of sources and eventually sold 653,000.
That cut into the allocation for the public sale, according to Rothenberg. Rothenberg said Friday that 300,000 tickets, nationwide, would be available for the public sale.
Another lesson from the private sale was to limit the number of tickets each individual may purchase. The limit in the private sale was 10 tickets per family. That has been changed to four per family for the public sale.
Rothenberg said there were no plans to sell single-game tickets, adding that some scattered tickets may be made available early next year.
Tickets for games in the later rounds will go on sale in the fall.
Tickets may be ordered by calling (800) 769-1994.
