New York City Councilmember Virginia Maloney will lead an examination into whether roughly a half billion dollars New York and New Jersey spent hosting eight World Cup matches was money well spent.
Maloney, who leads the council’s committee on economic development, said in an interview on Friday at a coffee shop in her Manhattan district that “first I want to make sure we recouped our cost,” and added, “I'm not confident we can say that.”
She said data appears mixed on hotel performance, noting bookings initially seemed low but recovered closer to matches, and that disentangling World Cup-driven activity from other major summer events in the city will be necessary to assess the tournament’s economic effect.
Maloney said bars and restaurants experienced “a lot more activity and action in New York,” and attributed some of that to a law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul temporarily extending hours for bars and restaurants; a Queens Chamber of Commerce report found a 30 percent increase in businesses for people going out to drink and eat.
The host committee released a study last summer predicting $3.3 billion in economic impact across New York and New Jersey, including about $432 million in state and local tax revenues, and a preliminary study by the host committee of just the group stage found $1.2 billion in direct economic impact.
Across the country, advocates say stories of fans duped by “ghost tickets” on resale platforms have accelerated state-level action: Illinois, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. have passed legislation banning speculative ticket sales since the beginning of the World Cup, and Connecticut, Oregon and Vermont have enacted ghost ticket bans this year; Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced her intention to file a bill prohibiting ghost tickets on Thursday.
Scott Friedman, podcast host and co-founder of the Ticket Talk Network, said, “It’s definitely raising eyebrows in the state of politicians and legislators to really ban ghost ticketing, speculative ticketing,” and John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League, said, “Most of which have some kind of ban on speculative tickets.”
At the federal level, the TICKET Act passed the House in April and moved through the Senate Commerce Committee in June; proponents say the bill would ban speculative ticket sales and safeguard consumers, and Breyault said, “In this environment, where Republicans and Democrats can’t agree that the sky is blue on some days, that’s a rare occurrence.”
Stephen Parker, executive director of the National Independent Venue Association, criticized the measure, saying you “could drive a Mack Truck” through the TICKET Act’s ghost ticketing provisions, and music groups argued the bill would still allow speculative sales by permitting sellers to advertise ticket procurement services; Parker said the most encouraging action so far is at the state level, adding, “This is happening across the country, and ultimately, what we are seeing is state legislators from both parties saying enough is enough. If Congress isn’t going to do something, we are, and we couldn’t be more grateful for their work.”