So, why aren’t you going to NBA games?

Is it because you’re a weirdo, and don’t like the league? That can’t be the case, because you’re reading this website. Is it because you live too far away from an NBA arena? Fair enough, though there are 28 cities to chose from, including two teams apiece in New York and Los Angeles. Parking prices? Concession ripoffs? Poor sight lines? Can’t stand that guy that yells “ev-ry-bo-dy clap your hands?” All of these make sense.

It can’t be the ticket prices, though. For a few teams, at least. More and more NBA teams are basically giving away tickets to games, offering free ticket specials or $1 deals on ducats. Several ticket pricing websites are often reduced to selling tickets for literal pocket change on game days, and yet fans still aren’t showing up. From a report from TIME, as put together by Bill Tuttle:

According to ESPN statistics, the Pistons are averaging 13,272 tickets sold per home game, and they play in the 21,000-seat Palace arena. Some of these “sold” tickets are given away free, and many more ticket holders simply don’t show up. The net result is a sea of unoccupied seats in the Palace, as fans who watch the games on TV can attest. Essentially the same scene is being played out at several NBA arenas this season. The Pistons are hardly the only team finding it difficult to attract fans. To boost attendance, the Milwaukee Bucks (fourth-worst in league attendance) have been hosting promotions like “Buck Night,” when tickets for kids 14 and under are $1, and hot dogs sell for just $1 as well. (Naturally, the event took place when the Bucks were playing the Pistons.)

Entertainment sways aside, there’s a good reason why a whole lot of fans don’t follow through on using those free or discounted tickets. It’s the same reason you just let a whole sheet of coupons expire, or declined to take advantage of the free local municipal entertainment your city surely offers.

It’s because it’s free. Who cares, when you’re not taking in entertainment you’ve already paid for? This is why the Pistons have cut back on free tickets. From the Detroit News:

"If you rely on free tickets too heavily, it undermines the pricing structure," said Andrew Zimbalist, economist at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. "If you have a regular ticket and you're sitting next to someone who got theirs free, that undercuts the value of your ticket. "And you can, like the Pistons are, get away from that by offering other inducements that maintain the underlying integrity of the pricing structure." [President and CEO of Palace Sports Dennis] Mannion agreed, saying that giving away tickets generates "very low" revenue from parking and concessions. "You also have high no-show rates with free tickets," he said.

Which brings us back to the original point. If you can secure free or heavily discounted tickets through either the team or ticket brokering sites, why not take in that night’s contest? Even if it is against the Sacramento Kings?

For a lot of us, the secondary costs get to be way too much. Personally speaking, my family of four cannot afford to take in an Indiana Pacers game this year, even if we grabbed a batch of heavily discounted seats high in the rafters. The hour-long drive, parking and costs that go beyond the price of the actual ticket are too high. Because I’m not going to be the dad that sneaks snacks into the arena for his kids to eat surreptitiously on the cheap -- and I’m not going to make my wife sit through D.J. Augustin running sets off the bench without buying her a few beers to get through it. And YOU try saying “no” to your daughters when they want to buy another foam finger.

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