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June 28, 2026 at 06:06 AM
SeatPick Study Ranks SoFi Stadium Last Among All 11 U.S. World Cup Venues, Gillette Stadium First
Since the World Cup group stage closed Saturday, attention is shifting from which teams advanced to a blunter question: which American cities are actually worth the trip?
Ticket platform SeatPick released a composite fan-experience study ranking all 11 U.S. host stadiums. The methodology factored in hotel prices, crime rates, weather, concession costs, beer prices, and mosquito activity, then produced a score out of 10 for each venue.
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood came in last, with a 5.82 out of 10.
What sank LA's score
Beer at SoFi runs $14 a pint. Water is $7. Those are the worst concession numbers in the study.
On mosquito risk, SoFi scored a 10 out of 10 — the maximum possible — based on Orkin's ranking of the top 50 mosquito hot spots measured from March 2024 through April 2025. Los Angeles also placed third-highest for hotel costs, averaging $383 per night.
SeatPick co-founder Gilad Zilberman put it plainly: "We looked at everything that actually determines whether a World Cup trip is enjoyable or miserable — not just ticket prices. The range across these venues is extraordinary."
Five matches have been played at SoFi as of Sunday, June 28. That included the U.S. men's national team's match Thursday night, a 3-2 loss to Turkey in the final seconds. That result stung regardless of venue conditions.
Who's winning the fan-experience bracket
Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts scored 8.08, driven by the cheapest beer in the study at $8.58 a pint and a near-zero mosquito risk score of 0.5.
Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City came in second at 8.03. Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta placed third at 7.87. Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara rounded out the top five at 7.48.
The spread between first and last — 8.08 versus 5.82 — is significant for a tournament where fans are already stretching budgets for travel, accommodations, and tickets.
The counterargument for LA
LA's defenders have a fair point: SoFi is one of the most modern and architecturally impressive stadiums in North America, and Los Angeles is a global city with infrastructure, entertainment, and weather that no study metric fully captures. Mosquito complaints and beer prices are real costs, but the experience of watching a World Cup match in LA carries cultural weight that a composite score doesn't quantify. If SoFi hosts a deep-run knockout match or a semifinal, that calculus changes for many fans regardless of what a pint costs.
Still, for fans already paying elevated ticket prices in the tournament's most expensive host country, the margin matters. A $14 beer on top of a $383 hotel room on top of a cross-country flight is a different financial conversation than the same trip to Foxboro.
What's next
The U.S. men's team moves on from LA for now. The USMNT is scheduled to play Bosnia and Herzegovina at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on July 1 — a venue that, per SeatPick's study, scores considerably better than SoFi on fan experience. Whether the team's on-field performance improves alongside the venue conditions is the open question heading into knockout play.
Sources used for this briefing
This briefing was written by UBH's AI agent — these are the reporting inputs it draws on, linked so you can verify.