There is strong demand for tickets to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, despite concerns regarding available accommodations for fans. 

Qatar 2022 is on pace to surpass ticket sales for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, which was the best-attended edition in 25 years. 

• FIFA saw more than 800,000 tickets sold between January and March, with 17 million requests. 
• The tournament, which begins on Nov. 21, will be played in eight stadiums within a 30-mile radius of Doha. 
• Single tickets to group matches range from $105 to $210, while tickets for the final on Dec. 18 range between $455 and $1,100 each.

Qatar hopes to attract 1.2 million fans for the event, but the task is looking to be an uphill battle due to  a shortage of accommodations. 

Qatari officials project 850,000 overseas visitors to need rooms for the tournament, but Qatar’s Supreme Committee told the Associated Press that roughly 90,000 rooms will be available to the public. 

Many of the hotel rooms in Qatar have been block-booked to prevent price-gouging and leave room for teams, media, and World Cup organizers.

Next Up

The 2026 World Cup will be played in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. Earlier this week, Canada added B.C. Place, a stadium in Vancouver, as a proposed site to host matches. Vancouver joins Edmonton, Alberta, and Toronto as Canadian locations looking to participate in the tournament.

One South Carolina state senator said that David Tepper’s pause on building the Carolina Panthers’ practice facility and headquarters could result in no tax credits for Tepper Sports & Entertainment — if the $800 million facility is not completed by 2024.

“Those tax credits would ultimately confer $115 million in an economic benefit to the Panthers organization,” South Carolina Sen. Wes Climer said. “But if the team doesn’t move its payroll here by 2024, the state’s contribution goes to zero.”

• The Legislature agreed to the tax breaks in 2019 for moving the team’s operations from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Rock Hill, South Carolina.
• The original plans had the facility opening in August of this year, but there have been multiple delays.

Tepper paused construction in early March, reportedly due to Rock Hill failing to distribute $225 million worth of bonds for infrastructure improvement. Neither Tepper nor the team have spoken about it publicly since, but they had already invested more than $170 million in the project at the time. 

Panthers Plans

The project is supposed to include a 5,000-seat stadium, an indoor practice center, and medical, training, and nutrition facilities. Tepper owns the plot and has plans to develop it over the next two decades.

It’s still unclear when or if construction will resume, but South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters last week that he has had multiple conversations with Tepper, who ensured the construction was only paused.

Investcorp is reportedly in exclusive talks with Elliott Management to purchase Italy’s AC Milan for $1.1 billion.

With around $40 billion in assets under management, the Middle East’s biggest alternative asset manager includes Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund Mubadala Investment Co. as a shareholder — the fund purchased a 20% stake in 2017. 

• Investcorp’s goal is to have $100 billion in assets under management.
• After nearly 40 years, the fund delisted from the Bahrain stock exchange in 2021 to boost its expansion.
• Since 2015, Investcorp’s assets under management have more than quadrupled.

Elliot Management took over ownership of AC Milan in 2018, when previous owner Li Yonghong defaulted on debt obligations. 

Wealth Fund Wins

If Investcorp does finalize the purchase of AC Milan, the team would join a growing list of European soccer clubs purchased by sovereign wealth funds and the first top Italian team to be taken over by Middle East investors. 

Newcastle United was purchased for $421 million by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund last year, Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan has a 77% stake in Manchester City through City Football Group, and a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority is the majority owner of Paris Saint-Germain.

A new labor deal and a booming free-agent market raised the average Major League Baseball salary by 5.9% as of Opening Day.

MLB players make an average of $4.41 million, per an analysis by the Associated Press, up from $4.17 million in 2021.

Players saw increases at the top and bottom as the league and its players union reached a new collective bargaining agreement after an acrimonious 99-day lockout.

• The minimum salary grew to $700,000 from $570,500 in the new CBA.
• The average would be a record $4.68 million after accounting for a $50 million bonus pool for high-performing, pre-arbitration players and subtracting an additional two players per team — due to a one-time roster expansion through May 1 — who are mostly on minimum salaries.
• Median salary rose $50,000 to $1.2 million but was still well below the $1.4 million median of 2019 and the 2015 record of $1.65 million.

Parity Disparity

With no minimum or maximum salary, MLB team payrolls run from the Oakland A’s $48 million to the Los Angeles Dodgers $285 million.

The 100 highest-paid players are making 48.9% of all salaries, down from 52.4% last year. New York Mets ace Max Scherzer set the record for annual salary at $43.3 million with his offseason deal.