A great innovation to sports: bad play = free ticket

I hate paying for a game only to see my team lose. It’s a reason I rarely shell out $30 for games since I know there’s like a 50/50 chance of my team mailing it in (especially true in baseball when key players are resting).

I have long wanted to pay only if my team wins, and it seems like there is progress on this idea.

Via SportsBiz with Darren Rovell, a CNBC blog:

After a bad loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy, the Seattle Sounders said they’d refund their season ticket holders for the game because of how poorly the team played.

The idea reportedly came from a player, Steve Zakuani, who said that the fans shouldn’t have to pay. Remarkably, the Sounders soon announced that the game would in fact be refunded to the team’s 32,000 season ticket holders.

The catch here is the “refund” was really a credit towards tickets for the next year. Not perfect but a step in the right direction. For the team, the extra attendance can obviously benefit both concession sales and advertising revenue.

The article goes on to discuss a case in European soccer where players personally footed the bill to refund fans after a bad performance. How I would love to see an American team follow.

There is also mention of a minor league team selling “win insurance” which works exactly as it sounds. For a $2 premium, you get a refund if your team loses.

I would love to see these products become more widespread. I would probably spend up to 33 percent on win insurance–a $30 ticket with insurance would be $40 if they win and only $10 if they lose.

What do you think about refunding tickets after bad play? Would you buy “win insurance”? How much would you spend on it?



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  • G. Pearson

    Presh, I think your column started out great and then tailed off by changing from “refund for bad play” to “discount for a loss.” Being a fan of a particular team is about the highs and lows. Sure, it’s more fun to experience the highs, but they become meaningless without the lows.

    As a season ticket holder for the University of Kentucky football team, I have seen my fair share of gut-wrenching losses, many a result of some bone-headed action on the part of the coaches or players. But I never felt that being reimbursed for the ticket would assuage the pain because it isn’t about the money for me. I follow UK because it is my alma mater, my team, my state, a portion of my personal identity.

    I can understand the philosophy of a team wanting to atone for a game-long, seriously poor performance. I disagree with the idea that the fans are owed something just because the home team lost. Sports is a metaphor for the struggles of our existence. It’s a valuable life lesson that sometimes, no matter how well the home team plays, the visitors just play better.

  • Clarence Ewing

    G. Pearson makes a good point. As a lifelong Nebraska Cornhusker fan, getting money back after a loss would do me no good.

    Also, what exactly consitutes “bad play?” Every team has off days even when they’re trying, especially in top-level leagues with long seasons (e.g. Major League Baseball (162 games), the National Baskeball and National Hockey Leagues [82 games each]). If I were a league owner, I’d be wary of setting myslef up to having to pay for statistical inevitability.

  • Dom

    If you want ‘win insurance’, you can have it – just bet against your team appropriately.

  • prakruthi

    Doesn’t this go against the spirit of sports whereby you watch a game for so much more than a win or a loss. At the same time, if payers are made to pay up for bad performance, I would like to see its effects on match fixing.





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