Here’s an audio version for my latest column. And here’s the spoiler: A Mexican worker on the minimum wage (nearly have of all workers make the minimum or less) would have to work 177 days to afford a ticket to the opening game at Estadio Azteca.

CORRECTION:

This morning’s version of this story stated an incorrect price charged by FIFA to attend the opening match between Mexico and South Africa at Azteca on June 11.

FIFA still has about 1,000 tickets for just under MXN$56,000 pesos, which amounts to some 177 days of work at Mexico’s minimum wage. Moreover, on Stubhub I found some 80 tickets for between 88 and 100 days of work. This is is much less than the cheapest price of 341 days that I quoted in my piece earlier this morning, which came from the wrong FIFA website.

I would argue that the real prices are still fairly crazy (Getting a tick to see Taylor on the Era’s tour would only cost a worker on Mexico’s minimum wage 55 days of work.)

A corrected version of my piece follows.

The minimum wage provides a critical indicator of the state of Mexican society. 28 million Mexicans–about 47% of all workers–earn the minimum wage or less. After the government started increasing it aggressively in 2018 it became perhaps the most potent tool of social policy.

Today, it amounts to about MXN$315 pesos per day, or about US$18 dollars at the current exchange rate. By the government’s count, this buys almost two “basic baskets” of essential goods and services–housing, food, transportation, healthcare and so on–which measure what a person needs to meet Mexico’s poverty line.

The minimum wage was once a popular benchmark for prices and costs. The government calculated tax brackets, fines and the like in multiples of the minimum wage, stopping the practice when the wage started rising eight years ago.

It can still provide an intuitive way to assess the outrageous prices FIFA is charging for tickets to this summer’s World Cup of football.

A Mexican who wants to buy tickets from FIFA today to witness the opening match of the Cup, between host Mexico and South Africa at the Colossus of Santa Ursula, as the Estadio Azteca is referred to, will have to shell out MXN$55,850. That amounts to US$3,226. But here’s what’s outrageous: a Mexican worker on the minimum wage would need to toil the better part of a year–177 days–to afford it.

I can remember going watch games at the stadium the last time the World Cup was in town, in 1986. I was a college student. Not rich. Still, I could afford a package of 13 tickets for all the games played at the two venues in Mexico City, the Azteca and Pumas stadium, on the campus of UNAM, Mexico’s enormous national university.

I gasped at the great overhead goal by Mexican midfielder Manuel Negrete against Bulgaria. I saw Maradona’s “hand of God” goal against England, as well as his next one, after dribbling through most of the English squad. I saw Germany under Karl Heinz Rummenige come back from being 2-0 down, only to lose the final against Argentina in the 85th minute to a fabulous Maradona-crafted goal by Jorge Burruchaga. And I witnessed all this for the equivalent of about 29 days working at the minimum wage.

The most expensive 13-game package (not the one I got) went for MXP$135,540 old Mexican pesos, those around before three zeros were lopped off a few years later. That amounted to about US$1,811 in 2026 money.

Americans may not be used to comparing prices in this way. Less than 1% of American workers earn the federal minimum wage or less, largely because many states have set their own, higher wage floors. But here’s another shot at putting FIFA’s expanding ambitions in perspective.

That ticket to the Mexico-South Africa opener on June 11 costs about 3.6% of the median annual household income of the United States in 2024 (US$88,929 in today’s money.) Had a median American family come to Mexico City to buy tix for the 1986 Cup, that 13-game package would have cost them 2.7% of their yearly income (US$67,815 in 2026 dollars.)

Many people will argue that the World Cup is prone to the same economic forces that have driven up the prices of other top-notch live entertainment events. The tournament only repeats every four years. International travel is cheaper than it was in 1986. Average incomes are higher than they were back then. Still, even tix to Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour on Stubhub averaged just over US$1,000 —or 55 days of toil on Mexiico’s minimum wage.

I can’t imagine the crowd at that Mexico-South Africa opener. Some lucky Mexicans may have gotten hold of some tickets FIFA reportedly sold in December for as little as $370, just over 20 days working at the minimum wage. Who will buy the rest? Four out of five Mexican workers earn up to three times the minimum. The best paid of them would have to devote 60 days of work to get into the stadium.

Mexico does have an extremely wealthy upper crust. But I can’t see them filling anywhere near Azteca’s 85,000-plus seats. If they do, it will be weird to hear them jangle the jewelry when Mexico scores.

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