WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – A sponsor is giving away 20,000 free tickets to the Women’s World Cup soccer matches in New Zealand, where rugby union dominates the sports scene and ticket sales are low.
According to FIFA, 1.25 million tickets were sold for the different clashes in both Australia and New Zealand. Of that number of tickets, 320,000 have been sold for games in New Zealand, but only six of those games have full stadiums.
On Thursday, the tournament’s sponsor, accountancy firm Zero, said it was giving away 5,000 free tickets to a match at four subsidiary stadiums in New Zealand.
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Women’s World Cup executive director Dave Beach told the New Zealand Herald that FIFA was “comfortable” with the current rate of ticket sales in the country. He said sales have increased due to increased coverage of the event in recent weeks.
“Naturally there’s a lot of demand for certain sports, the Kiwis and some of the best teams,” Beach said, using the New Zealand team’s nickname. “But we’re happy with the overall progress.”
Last month, Sarai Bereman, FIFA’s director of women’s football, raised concerns about the pace of ticket sales in New Zealand, despite them generally being higher than at France 2019.
Sales in Australia are driven by support for the local team, which has legitimate title aspirations. In contrast, New Zealanders have never won a World Cup group stage match.
A big problem is that football is generally not a popular sport in New Zealand. And it rarely draws fans to stadiums during the colder months of the year.
The national rugby union team, known as the All Blacks, could have packed the stadium several times for a match against South Africa in Auckland on Sunday.
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