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As the league faces the possibility of losing the ticket-selling leverage that comes from blacking out games, the NFL may finally be applying better business principles to the pricing of tickets.

Peter King of TheMMQB.com reports that variable ticket pricing may finally be coming to the NFL.

“I’d say as many as half the teams in the league are thinking about instituting it for 2014,” an unnamed team executive told King.

It’s a simple concept. Instead of charging one set price for every game in the preseason and regular season, teams would charge more or less based on the perceived quality of the opponent.

The approach would be the natural and obvious alternative to Colts owner Jim Irsay’s view that one-price-fits-all ticketing strikes a balance between games of lower quality (like the preseason) and more intriguing contests, like Peyton Manning’s return to Indy. Variable pricing reflects the realities of the secondary market, giving teams a bigger chunk of the money ultimately paid for the most attractive games on the schedule.

That’s the way the market for tickets should work. Supply, demand. Bigger games result in bigger prices, and crappy games result in more affordable costs.

The varying prices would be set before a giving season based on a team’s schedule (which is the only way to handle season-ticket sales), the prices for single-game tickets should rise and/or fall based on how much people are willing to pay — which will be based on how well the team is doing and/or the significance of a given game.

That’s how it works on the secondary market. It’s also how it should work on the primary market.