Introduction
For a generation of Mexican soccer followers, the World Cup has long been measured in memories of specific tournaments rather than simple calendar years. Yet as the tournament returns to Mexico after 40 years, the experience for many locals is not one of celebration but of exclusion. Fans and small-business owners across multiple cities say they are being priced out of stadiums, pushed into paid viewing options, and subject to licensing and visual measures that separate the event from everyday life.
Personal histories and a changing tournament
Eduardo Marin, who was born in 1986, the last time Mexico hosted the World Cup, sums up a generational perspective. He traces defining moments of his life to successive tournaments - Mexico’s penalty loss to Bulgaria in 1994, Argentina’s extra-time winner in 2006, and a 2018 road trip in which he and eight friends painted a bus in Mexico’s colors and drove from Germany to Russia to follow the national team. That bus later appeared on global television and briefly delivered viral attention to the group.
But despite that history, Marin is staying home for the current tournament. He said he will not attend any matches and that the painted bus now gathers dust. "Ticket prices," he said, "have soared beyond reach," and he believes the event has changed from something inclusive to an affair for wealthier spectators, comparing it to Formula One rather than the fan-driven tournaments of his youth. Marin said the total cost for his trip to Russia in 2018, including tickets to three games, was about $5,000. He pointed out that for this tournament some fans paid that amount for a single ticket to Mexico’s opening match against South Africa.
Widespread sense of exclusion
Marin’s experience and view are widely echoed across Mexico. Although the World Cup has returned to Mexican soil, many citizens report feeling shut out. The obstacles they cite fall into several categories: ticket affordability, restricted free-to-air viewing, commercial licensing costs for public screenings, and urban changes reputedly aimed at presenting polished images to visiting fans.
The distribution of matches has also been a point of contention. Mexico will host only 13 of the 104 World Cup matches, while the majority are being played in the United States. For lifelong supporters, that imbalance is stinging. "When they made it 13 matches, it felt insulting," said Ricardo Arafat Garcia Tagle, a 42-year-old graphic animator from the working-class Mexico City neighborhood of Coapa, as he watched the group stage tie between Brazil and Morocco in his apartment. "Of the three countries - Mexico, the United States and Canada - this is the football nation!"
Cost barriers to viewing
Access to watching matches at home has changed from past tournaments. Where many previous World Cups were widely available on free-to-air television, a larger share of matches for this event require paid subscriptions. The cost of attending matches in person has also risen sharply. At the Azteca stadium in Mexico City, fans reported paying between $3,000 and $5,000 for tickets to the World Cup opener - amounts that represent roughly 10 months of a median Mexican salary.
FIFA has defended the ticket pricing, saying that prices are in line with other major sporting events. Mexico’s government, when asked about high ticket prices, has said free, public screenings have been arranged around the country. Mexico’s next match is June 18 against South Korea in Guadalajara.
Licensing labyrinth constrains bars and restaurants
For commercial venues that have traditionally relied on sporting events to draw customers, the tournament has posed a new set of compliance and cost challenges. At Salon Casino, a cantina in the Doctores neighborhood of Mexico City, manager Luis Bernot described a complicated process to prepare the bar for the World Cup. He said the establishment had to repeatedly redesign promotional materials as new restrictions emerged, including bans on using the term "World Cup" or images associated with the tournament.
Outside the cantina, a banner now reads: "Soccer is lived and drunk," next to a soccer ball covered in international flags - language and imagery chosen carefully to avoid infringement on rights holders. "They want to profit from everything," Bernot said, referring to FIFA.
Fees for commercial licenses to broadcast the entire World Cup vary by venue size. According to a Televisa spokesperson, fees range from about 4,000 Mexican pesos for businesses with fewer than five tables to 22,000 pesos for venues with more than 20 tables. In response to questions from reporters, the spokesperson said TelevisaUnivision is broadcasting 32 matches for free, including all Mexico games and the final, and added that FIFA had "significantly increased the cost of broadcasting rights compared to previous World Cups." Mexico’s restaurant organization CANIRAC has warned on its website that members must obtain a commercial license and that using personal subscriptions for public viewing could lead to fines or sanctions.
For smaller establishments, those costs have been prohibitive. At Las Delicias de la Obrera, a modest restaurant in Mexico City’s Obrera neighborhood, manager Julio Mendoza said paying for a commercial TV package was never an option. The restaurant will show only the limited number of matches being broadcast free. On a Saturday evening when Haiti played Scotland, the television showed a telenovela instead. Mendoza said he had hoped the World Cup would boost business by attracting tourists, but that the result had been disappointing. "It’s not great," he said, as he served bowls of pozole.
Urban beautification and the sense of being hidden
Efforts to present host cities attractively to visiting fans have also generated friction. In Mexico City, residents criticized the painting of axolotls, the native salamander, on public surfaces ranging from murals to train cars. Around Monterrey, authorities erected walls along roads leading to the stadium and the airport, which residents say block poorer neighborhoods from view. "They don’t want anyone to see us," said San Juanita Barrera, 71, a longtime resident of the Nuevo San Rafael neighborhood. The Nuevo León state government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Local reactions and broader implications
Across the country, the combination of high ticket prices, paywalled broadcasts, and licensing barriers has left many fans feeling sidelined. For those who recall more inclusive tournaments, the current atmosphere feels altered. Marin, who has traveled extensively to support Mexico’s national team, said it is hard to accept that he will not attend any matches at home. But his grievance goes beyond personal disappointment. "I feel like it just doesn’t have the same energy anymore," he said. "It’s not the same."
Those words capture a broader sentiment among working-class fans and small-business operators: that the tournament’s economics and regulations are reshaping who can participate and how. The official responses from FIFA and national broadcasters emphasize rights and standard pricing, while government references to public screenings indicate an attempt to provide alternatives that some citizens nonetheless find insufficient.
Exchange rate
($1 = 17.2143 Mexican pesos)