What made the Club World Cup one to remember? The massive drop in ticket prices.

Former U.S. men’s national team legend Clint Dempsey: “You can’t price out the working class from going to games.”

Clint Dempsey saw what everybody else could see.

The reluctance of many to purchase tickets for the FIFA Club World Cup has led to a noticeable drop in ticket sales. In an effort to catch up, soccer’s governing body slashed prices to a number of games.

The result? A much better atmosphere.

“You can’t price out the working class from going to games,” Dempsey said recently on his Men in Blazers podcast, The Deuce. “You want to be around people who are passionate because it’s contagious.”

Dempsey was largely referring to the low turnout for the U.S. national team in Concacaf Gold Cup matches, but the sentiment also works for the Club World Cup.

What’s been described by many as simply a money grab by world soccer’s governing body has actually been a success in showcasing that soccer is much bigger — and way more passionate — than the brand fed here in the United States by the broadcasters of the English Premier League and Spain’s La Liga.

Games featuring Manchester City, Chelsea and even Real Madrid have paled in comparison to matches featuring Brazilian clubs like Fluminense and Flamengo, or watching the raucous support in the stands of clubs like Argentina’s Boca Juniors or Morocco’s Wydad AC, who set Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field ablaze during its matches in the tournament.

“Would you rather sit with Boca Juniors fans or with the Japanese fans of Urawa, and bounce up and down with them?” asked Men in Blazers host Roger Bennett. “Or would you rather sit in a very empty AT&T Stadium?”

In the second week of the tournament, FIFA announced it had sold over a million tickets to various group stage matches across the country and anticipated that number to grow as the knockout stages commenced. Much of the fanfare stemmed however from tickets valued for some half of their original listing.

“It’s been great to be able to be able to take the family to see a game and not feel like you got hosed,” said Mark Mullin, who attended Fluminense’s 4-2 win over Ulsan at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. “Then we got there and the crowd was amazing, the songs, the smoke all of it, you forget that this is what the game is all about.”

The newly expanded format of the Club World Cup too has allowed American fans of the sport to get a much better glimpse of world soccer. With the European game the primary driver of eyes, and dollars here in the States, to see the passion from clubs from the likes of South America, Asia and Africa has been enlightening — particularly ahead of the larger FIFA World Cup next year.

Photo by Qian Jun/MB Media/Getty Images

Did FIFA lose its shirt on the tournament? Time will tell, especially considering the $1 billion tournament purse in addition to the $11 million its pledged to host cities for sustainability efforts. But even if they are what is a win is that this tournament is showcasing soccer in a much different light than what’s customarily showcased in the States.

Money grab or not, there’s a real argument that the Club World Cup is delivering them.

“You want to be around people who have the love for it like you do,” said Dempsey. “It’s experiences, you’ll remember where you were, certain goals … you’ll sit around the table at Thanksgiving, Christmas, special moments with your family you’re going to sit and talk about it. You need more of those moments.”