Although the primary distributors haven’t released tickets yet, third-party resellers officially started selling seats for the 2024 Copa América in the United States last week.
Students are excited for the chance to watch an international soccer tournament in their backyard this summer.
“I’m super excited,” said Carlos Monserrat, a senior business administration major. “I’m definitely going to go to the games that are at SoFi, I might travel elsewhere…The players show a lot more passion playing for their countries, and I just think that’s cool to see.”
This year’s Copa América will be the 48th edition of the tournament and only the second time the United States will host the tournament. The tournament will be a dry run for the World Cup for some of the host cities like Houston, Dallas and Kansas City.
SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles will also host two Copa América games. Brazil will play at SoFi Stadium on June 22 against either Costa Rica or Honduras. Venezuela will also play Mexico there on June 26.
The Copa América is a soccer tournament held between national teams of the South American Football Federation, also known as CONMEBOL. However, this year’s edition of the Copa América will host the 10 CONMEBOL nations and another six teams from CONCACAF, the North American soccer governing body.
The 10 CONMEBOL nations automatically qualified for this summer’s tournament. The United States, Jamaica, Mexico and Panama earned their spots in the cup via CONCACAF Nations League standings. Two of Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Honduras will claim the final spots through Copa América qualification playoffs.
Fans will have to pay a hefty price to go to some of these games. According to StubHub, tickets for the Brazil game in Los Angeles range from around $250 to more than $20,000. As for the Venezuela and Mexico match, prices are currently listed between $300 to over $20,000.
“It’d be sick to actually go to a game in person, and it’s cool that people will be talking about soccer,” said Sophia Cabrera, a sophomore studying biomedical engineering. “The price will probably be the biggest barrier [to me going to a game].”
According to The Athletic, CONEMBOL expects to release tickets through its primary ticket distributors, Ticketmaster and SeatGeek, by the end of March. They hoped to release general admission tickets in January but experienced delays.
For fans looking to buy tickets now, they will have to purchase them through third-party distributors like StubHub and VividSeats. Unfortunately for these fans, the tickets are likely to be a lot more expensive due to these resellers’ fees.
Attending the tournament for international fans will be expensive regardless of where they get the tickets, especially considering hotel and airfare prices. CONMEBOL is allowing fans to sign up for updates on pre-sale general public tickets on the organization’s website for this summer’s tournament.
Regardless of if they go to the games, fans at USC said they are excited for the opportunity to see the United States play in an international tournament.
“I watch a lot more UEFA [European Soccer], so I don’t get to see a lot of CONCACAF teams,” Mark Haanschoten, a freshman studying business administration, said. “It’s also nice that because the U.S. is hosting, they’re going to be playing against a lot more South American countries when normally they’d be playing against other Central American countries.”