Thousands of fans take trains from Boston to Gillette Stadium for Brazil-France friendly in World Cup preview
A spectacle of global proportion brings a lot of fans, and that is what the World Cup represents. Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts will host seven matches, and the Brazil-France friendly on Thursday was a strong preview of what is to come.
One of the biggest hurdles for the state is getting people to the games at the stadium, which is about 35 miles south of Boston by car.
To counter the demand on the MBTA and the Commuter Rail, the state added four event trains that went directly to Gillette Stadium. Keolis says roughly 2,300 people purchased event train tickets for the friendly on Thursday.
Fans were greeted by ticket collectors outside of South Station in Boston. People were ushered into a special line before entering the trains to the game.
"We decided to take the train today because we figured parking would be chaos down at Gillette," one fan waiting in line said.
Trains for World Cup fans
Round trip train tickets on Thursday cost $30. According to the MBTA, train tickets to the World Cup matches are expected to go on sale Wednesday, April 8. Officials will put out a new event train schedule and pricing for the fans who have a ticket to the games, which run several thousand dollars.
In a meeting in February, the MBTA said it was bracing to carry 20,000 passengers per World Cup match between Boston and Gillette Stadium.
Theo Morac is from France but now lives locally. Thursday was his first time to Gillette, and he opted to take the train. "It was more convenient, and I had no idea how the traffic would be," Morac said.
David Matheney flew from Tennessee to watch Thursday's match and said the Commuter Rail service went as expected. "The MBTA crew definitely did a good job out there and back," said Matheney as he arrived back at South Station. "We definitely looked at Ubers and saw that the highway was definitely backed up. The train was great."
Parking will be drastically reduced at Gillette Stadium for the seven matches there. Last month, MBTA officials revealed that instead of the usual 20,000 parking spaces available during stadium events, there will only be 5,000 spots for fans. About 65,000 tickets will be sold for each match.
World Cup hotels
Fans lined up by the hundreds outside of the two hotels hosting the teams for Thursday's match. It's just a preview of the fandemonium and energy they will be bringing when the World Cup matches start in June. Fans will travel to Boston from all over the world, and they will need a place to stay.
According to a website that analyzes hotel rates for the World Cup, rooms in Boston average between $500 and $870 a night. Rates during peak matches soar even higher, making it the most expensive of the World Cup host cities.
