"Supporters are gouged." That's the Football Supporters' Association's verdict on Boston's transit pricing for the 2026 World Cup — and it's hard to argue.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority confirmed this week that a round-trip train ticket from central Boston to Gillette Stadium will cost $80 during the tournament. The same ticket normally runs $20. That's not a rounding error — it's a 400% markup on a journey fans have no real alternative to, given the stadium sits in Foxborough, miles from the city it supposedly represents.
Getting there will cost almost as much as some match tickets
And the train isn't even the most expensive option. The Boston host committee is reportedly planning bus service to Foxborough, with tickets potentially hitting $90 a pop. So for a family of four, you're looking at $360 just to get through the gates — before you've touched a beer or a shirt.
The Free Lions, the Fans' Embassy service for travelling England supporters, didn't hold back. "For a stadium so far away from its advertised location, all organisers had a duty to ensure supporters could get there sustainably and for a fair price," they wrote. England fans will care particularly — Gillette is hosting seven matches, with the Three Lions among the fixtures scheduled there.
This is the wider pattern of the 2026 World Cup, not an isolated quirk. FIFA has already pushed the top-tier final ticket at MetLife Stadium to $10,990, up from $8,680 just weeks earlier. Category 2 is now $7,380. Category 3 sits at $5,785. The price hikes aren't slowing — they're accelerating as the tournament approaches.
New York fans aren't faring much better
Meanwhile in New York, reports emerged the same day that Penn Station could be restricted exclusively to World Cup ticket holders on match days at MetLife, potentially leaving regular NJ Transit commuters stranded. The New York-New Jersey host committee said a full mobility plan is coming — but offered no reassurances in the meantime.
The 2026 World Cup was supposed to be the moment American soccer came of age. Right now it's shaping up as the moment fans learned exactly how much that moment would cost them to witness in person.
