With the ICC T20 World Cup less than three months away, ticket prices have risen, particularly for the highly anticipated India-Pakistan match. Although the World Cup is being held in the United States of America (USA), a non-traditional cricketing nation, prices remain at all-time highs. According to a report in USA Today, tickets for two of India’s matches against Pakistan and Canada were sold out as soon as they were published. However, the same tickets were now being sold on secondary platforms (resale websites) for astronomical amounts. The official tickets for the India-Pakistan match were priced at $6 (Rs 497) with the most expensive ticket for the premium seats costing around $400 (Rs 33,148) without taxes. The ICC had specified at the time that “no additional fees will be imposed beyond the specified taxes”.
The cheapest tickets on SeatGeek ranged in price from $1,198 (Rs 99,305) to $179,500 (Rs 1.48 crore)
However, on StubHub and SeatGeek, the identical $400 ticket was now offered for $40,000 (about Rs 33 Lakh), and when the platform fee was added, the price skyrocketed to $50,000 (around Rs 41 Lakh). The cheapest tickets on SeatGeek ranged in price from $1,198 (Rs 99,305) to $179,500 (Rs 1.48 crore). Adding the platform fees, the total cost of the tickets came to roughly $222,500 (Rs 1.8 crores). To give you an idea of how crazy the ticket costs are, last year a World Series ticket cost roughly $1,100, while courtside seats for the NBA finals cost up to $24,000. The average cost of a ticket to Super Bowl LVIII, which the Kansas City Chiefs won last month, is around $9,000 on the secondary market.
India and Pakistan’s World Cup rivalry will resume on June 9 in New York. While India has won seven out of eight T20 World Cups, Pakistan’s solitary victory over their rivals came in the 2021 edition, when Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan crushed their opponents by ten wickets in Dubai. India easily avenged the setback in the next edition, with Virat Kohli’s brilliant performance propelling India to victory in front of a crowd of over 90,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Stadium (MCG) in Australia.