What food and drink will cost fans at World Cup final – and how MetLife’s prices compare to other venues

There will be some inside MetLife Stadium on World Cup final day who read the food and drink signs with more interest than they will the Spain and Argentina starting line-ups.

With an extended half-time break as Justin Bieber, Shakira and company take to the pitch to perform, and then the medals and awards presentations, trophy-lift ceremony and celebrations on the pitch to follow after the match, which kicks off at 3pm local time, those lucky enough to have tickets will be in for a long afternoon and evening. Even after a hearty breakfast, eating and drinking across those hours will be essential for many.

So, what will be available to supporters at the venue just outside New York City? And how do MetLife’s prices compare to the other World Cup venues this summer?

Throughout the tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico, The Athletic’s reporters have attended games at all 16 stadiums and compiled a comprehensive list of the offerings available at each. We found well over 100 unique menu items, most of them in standard, non-hospitality areas of the concourse.

For some items, such as beer, some venues had a range of sizes available, so we adjusted costs accordingly to one size (16oz; around 475ml — just under a pint) to allow for comparison. We calculated this on a per-ounce basis using the largest size on offer at those stadiums which didn’t sell 16oz beers and rounded to the nearest 25 cents. Where necessary, we have adjusted prices from Canadian dollars and Mexican pesos to U.S. dollars for consistency.

The good news for those rocking up at MetLife in New Jersey on Sunday is you will have a variety of food and drink options — but choose your concessions stall wisely.

One menu seen by our reporters had only a hot sausage or sweet sausage sandwich as substantial items that wouldn’t be classified as a snack, both priced at $14 (£10). If you were looking for something lighter, there were Sabritas-branded nuts ($10), including salt-and-lime and chilli-and-lime flavours, along with chips (or as those in the UK call them, crisps) for $5.

Find the right stall, however, and there are plenty of options to choose from, headlined by a combo meal of four chicken tenders (strips), fries and a Coca-Cola for $19 (£14). Without the soft drink, it costs between $14 and $15, and for one less chicken tender, the price is $13.

Based on pictures shared online by those attending prior World Cup games at MetLife, other items include a deli sandwich ($16; £12), a ‘Stadium’ hot dog ($8.50), french fries ($8), cheese fries ($9), a pretzel braid ($9) — you can add a cheese cup to this for an extra $1 — clam strips ($6), a turkey sandwich ($7) and cheese ($11) or pepperoni ($12) pizza.

If you fancy your own hydration break, a 20oz water will cost you $5 (£3.75), while a soft drink of the same size — Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite and Fanta are all options — will set you back $6, and a ‘sports drink’ (Powerade) $7.

For those looking for something stronger, a 16oz American beer (Michelob Ultra) is priced at $16 (£12), $3 more than the non-alcoholic version, which is also available. It is $17 for a craft/import beer, and an extra $1 to have it on draft.

If you’re in the mood for a more sophisticated drink, a 12oz canned Nutrl hard seltzer/cocktail is available for $19, while a mixed cocktail — options include a Casamigos Margarita or a Buchanan’s ‘Buchanita’ — will set you back $17. A 6.3oz (186ml) pour of wine costs $15.

There has been no uniform set menu at concession stands for the World Cup, as organiser FIFA retained existing concession operators at all 16 stadiums.

At previous World Cups, tournament organisers would standardise food and beverage offerings and pricing across all venues. For 2026, FIFA hired the companies — such as Aramark or Sodexo — that serve each venue when it is staging NFL or domestic soccer games.

This new model mostly allowed the stadiums and their contractors to set their own prices. And their strategies, of course, differed across the board. But in general, a FIFA spokesperson told The Athletic in a statement, prices have been “broadly in line with pricing at regular events held at each respective venue”.

Across the 16 arenas, there were five items The Athletic found being sold at every one — water, soft drinks, chips, domestic beer and craft/import beer.

*Beer price calculated on a per-ounce basis using the largest available option for purposes of comparison

It was always going to be tough for anyone to compete with the pricing of Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which operates a “fan-first” pricing strategy implemented by Atlanta Falcons owner and Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, whose holding company AMB Sports and Entertainment owns that venue.

Of the five items listed above, MetLife sells the joint-sixth cheapest water alongside Toronto’s BMO Field, at a fairly reasonable price compared to the $8.25 (£6.25) you have to pay at AT&T Stadium near Dallas. The New Jersey arena sells the third cheapest 20oz to 22oz soft drink of all of the 16, $5.39 lower than the most expensive ($11.39) in Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field and at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

As for the 16oz domestic beers, MetLife’s price ranked right in the middle of the 11 stadiums where we observed it being sold. Four offered cheaper options, five were more expensive, and Gillette Stadium outside Boston had the same $16 price. In the 16oz craft/import beer category, six of the other 10 were more expensive, and four cheaper than MetLife’s $17.

As for food options, the chips came out as the joint-third cheapest across the 16 venues.

In terms of the other common options offered at more than a select few stadiums, MetLife has the second-cheapest popcorn ($6; £4.50) of the 12 venues we could find it at — bettered only by Atlanta ($2). It also had the joint-fifth cheapest fries of the dozen venues where those were sold.

Fans will rightly still feel those prices are steep compared to those in the Premier League, for example.

Even so, it seems those with the privilege of being at MetLife on Sunday could have it worse.