Just to state the potentially obvious, there are fewer NFL games than MLB or NBA (by about an order of magnitude, 272 NFL games per year vs. ~2,400 MLB games and ~2,400 NBA games), so the supply of seats is far more limited.
When you spend every week watching football, it probably means more to a lot of folks than a nice laptop or new smartphone. It's a major part of some people's lives.
Modern sports has mastered the art of storytelling and rivalry. They immerse you in the players' and coaches' lives, and fans begin to find their favorites to root for and against.
It's not surprising fans will pay $500, $1000, or more to see an especially memorable game. Or pay top dollar for a signed jersey.
This is no different than any other hobby. Lives are short and people want to immerse themselves in the things they love.
That is true but it’s also why I feel so strongly about not optimising it to extract more money from fewer wealthier people.
I don’t know - in Australia we oversize stadiums and, relative to population, expand our leagues much more so that there is much more opportunity to attend in person. A family of four can attend anything except finals (playoffs) for easily under au$100. But private ownership isn’t a part of the most popular codes.
I love live sport, and it’d be sad if the opportunity to attend was restricted to only the wealthy because charging half the people 5x the money is the optimal business decision.
Then there’s also fantasy sports and gambling that encourage you to keep up with every game that is going on in the league, not just your own local team.
(I say sort of because you could say it's the same word same definition just perhaps used more literally. But it certainly has a connotation to most of us that I think is how you're reading it above.)
I think the NFL is more of an entrenched business with great brand recognition than a cartel. College football players want an NFL contract because they trust that the NFL will be around in 10 years. (Same reason that CS grads want to work for Google and not a random startup; Google will be around in 5 years.) This means that the NFL gets first pick on the most talented players. That is what prevents upstart leagues from being successful. Players have seen what happened to competing leagues; their counterparts are now unemployed. Without good players, nobody is going to watch your thing, and thus, the NFL will continue to dominate.
I think that with an infinite amount of money, you could probably create a new football league for a new generation. You will need billions of dollars to build 32 new stadiums. You will need billions of dollars to pay Patrick Mahomes $500M a year to switch sides. (x32 teams x53 players on the roster = 800 billion dollars a year in salary costs ;)
Because nobody has an infinite amount of money, it's not really going to happen that way. I bet you could woo a number of viewers over by having a sane online streaming package. I want to watch every game in the season for a fixed price. No blackouts. No ads. No delay.
The NFL has an exemption from the Sherman antitrust act.
Therefore, we need not argue about whether they are or are not a cartel - or are engaging in anti-competitive behavior: our government has already defined them as such.
It's somewhat unclear if they even need the exemption. It's only relevant to TV licensing deals, and TV ain't what it used to be. The NFL mostly exists to keep the dying TV business alive, but nobody actually wants to watch the NFL on TV. If the TV deals were ruled illegal, the NFL would live and the TV stations would die.
Maybe but I doubt the NFL would continue on the way it does without TV. They must make a ton off networks who then make it back via advertising, but maybe I’m wrong. My group of friends and I definitely watch and don’t go to games because of the cost (we would not go to games just because they are not in TV).
College football around here is much more affordable (as are college basketball games, G league for basketball, and minor league baseball).
Well, I don't think "you can be the headline in our new league for your current salary" is going to work. He has to break a contract. He's burned his bridges with the NFL. That's going to require compensation.
Yes, you don't pay your backup defensive linemen the same as your quarterback, but the point is, people won't watch if those players are bad, and people aren't going to jump ship for free. You will have to build the league out of talent that somehow won't play for the NFL. It's going to be costly.
In the fan fiction land of make believe you’ve laid out here already, can’t we make the suspension of disbelief go just a tad further? Maybe every fan gets paid $1M per game they attend?
Well, considering the total cap for all players on both teams playing in the Super Bowl is less than the amount you think should be paid to a single person, there’s a start. ;)
Yeah, but people want the big names, and the big names already have guaranteed income. You have to make a higher offer.
I've decided I'm kind of "meh" on the whole salary cap thing. I want to see some star defensive linemen play. I want to see a $10M/year punter. Let's go CRAZY with this new league.
Michael Dickson wasn’t far off from that in the NFL in recent history. I’m not even remotely a sports guy and yet I knew this.
> the big names already have guaranteed income
Actually, many don’t. Even Mahomes has so little guaranteed I’m more than sure you could sway him to your fantasy fiction league for less than half the figure you listed as guaranteed income.
As someone who didn't grow up with spectator sports, can someone explain the appeal of these? Why would you want to be trapped in a loud, uncomfortable place for like 4 hours to watch someone do something, when you can watch the highlights for free at home a few hours later?
I don't think someone could pay me to go sit through one of these (well, maaaaaaybe for $9000). What's the draw? What am I missing?
It's a huge social event with a shared interest, there's energy and excitement in the shared experience, and the emotional rollercoaster that games often can be. It does seem to speak to something tribal within us humans.
I'm not even a "sports guy" but going to games of most sports is often a lot of fun because it's about more than just the game.
When I was a know-it-all teen/young adult I had some of that "sportsball is dumb and for idiots" mentality but as I got older I grew out of that and appreciate the simple fun of it all. Plus it's easy small talk fodder.
I'm a basketball fan, and think that going to a game live is one of the most exciting sports events there is, not comparing to seeing it on TV. My partner and stepdaughter agree too, though they are certainly not basketball fans as such.
Many years ago, I got tickets to a wrestling event (WWE, I believe) at a corporate box. We went (coworkers and I) only interested in drinking in the box, but found ourselves getting very into it. Being there definitely has that energy and experience.
I feel basketball, baseball and soccer are much more enjoyable from a social perspective than football, especially for a comparable price. Maybe at $300 football is enjoyable, but the stadiums are massive, and the cost means you’re much less likely to bring your own friends - so I guess you have to make new ones.
College football is a bit different though (probably with exceptions to stadiums over 65k)
I personally think baseball, with the slow pace, is actually the best in social terms.
> I personally think baseball, with the slow pace, is actually the best in social terms.
It's largely considered the most boring to go to because it's slow. In fact, it was recently so slow and uneventful, that added rule changes just to speed things up for fans...
I guess there's a case to be made it leaves more time to be "social" and talk to your friends at the game, but it's going to be hard to get them to go in the first place...
I like baseball well enough, and would not have minded the pace, but I don't want to got to nine-inning games that take three and a half hours to play.
I'll see your baseball and raise you test cricket. It is international level cricket; the visiting side coming to the host country for several months and playing a series of matches at different locations. There are normally up to 5 matches in a test series, and each match takes place over 5 days.
Quite fascinating to watch, and ranges from very mellow to nail-biting tension.
I wonder if it’s an evolutionary adaptation having to do with battles. I can see getting into this kind of frenzy state definitely being helpful for survival.
I dislike the NFL and American football for this reason. It's too large (as in, too many people at the stadium) and the number of games too few to be able to afford to regularly go to games. Its a sport designed for TV and it shows. Even the culture of being at the games is emblematic of this, in that there isn't really much of one.
I will also theorize that this is a major contributing factor to the not insignificant number of people that prefer college football to the NFL, even in cases where they are not alumni of the local college.
I’m not a sports guy. But I did go to a big ten college, and purchased season tickets as all my buddy’s were sports dudes. There is an energy in a stadium, like there are at concerts, some churches or when hearing someone you admire give a good speech. There is something primal in the moment that I feel is baked into the human experience to varying degrees in all of us. I haven’t been to a game since then, but I do remember them fondly (I was also drunk).
College football games are one of the only moments in the US where you can experience over 100,000 people screaming in unison. They don’t build any other sort of stadium or event space as large as some of these college football stadiums in terms of attendance.
Most of the 100,000+ person stadiums arent actually larger than NFL stadiums. The trick is they use bleachers which take up less space per seat, so a smaller stadium is able to fit a lot more people. I went to Michigan and now have season tickets to the Chicago bears, the big house fits 45 thousand more people, but the bears stadium feels much larger. I think everyone being so close together adds even more energy to college games.
Pro stadiums are often bound by capacity limits from their cities agreement with them being there. So over time they tend to replace cheap seats with more luxurious experiences and booths. Dodgers stadium is kind of notorious for this.
I don’t care about sports much. Grew up in society where cricket is religion. I suffered through too many boring live matches at home.
Never understood the appeal of live sports or watching games in person. Some teams I followed, I just looked up if they won or not, next day.
Went to a random soccer match a few years ago. That was one of best experiences of my life. The energy of crowd gets you really in the game. Everything else in your life doesn’t matter for a few hours.
It changed my perspective on watching sports in person. Same thing with watching sports at home or in a bar with really passionate fans is a lot fun and way better than watching it by yourself or with not very passionate fans.
It's an emotional experience. You cannot rationally derive human emotions, and you won't be able to rationally justify the things people have come up with to serve emotional needs (see e.g. military drills, which look nuts to observers). So you might as well take other people's preferences for activities as evidence that there is a reason to prefer them.
Being at an event is very different than watching on a screen,
from a not-so-recent hockey game experience:
during the breaks certain song snippets or chants caused thousands of people to stand up, move in a seemingly synchronized movements and speak / yell, sing whatever..
You may feel compelled to stand up when others stand.. to move a bit.. you feel it's normal to move and make noise, it's okay.. you expel energy.. if you go enough you learn the songs, the words, you jump at the chance to exclaim..
which is not normal in most people's day to day I think / feel..
There is an energy, and an expelling of energy in these group gatherings..
Something that is not allowed in our normal day to day - that I appreciate exists with these sporting things.
I often ask, what spaces exist in our modern society where it is okay for men to (and yes others not just men) shout, cry, touch each other, to cheer, to (word for opposite of cheer? - express sadness / loss).. together or even as individuals..
Some of this can be done with associates watching the game at home / sport bar, etc to a lesser degree and depending on your local conditions -
Yet there is something about being in the group place where everyone has to be a certain class to be there, and others are expressing..
I guess it's similar to some church type events, where being there can make you feel empathy easier then just watching..
I'm also wondering what other types of experiences / places / events allow for these expressions in modern day life.. perhaps there are more of these outside the US? or outside what I know to be 'normal' ?
Closest I've seen is bonfire / drum circle kind of thing maybe.
I don’t get it either. Especially football. There’s like on average something like 11 minutes of actual gameplay and it takes like 3 hours to watch the whole game.
In chess, the two players only are touching the pieces for maybe 100 seconds a game that can go on for hours too.
So what makes chess fun to watch?
It's what happens between those periods of movements.
Football is a game of strategy played out by two coaches. The players are their pawns.
Half the game is coming up with a plan and strategy. The other half is trying to perform that strategy.
You are only paying attention to the latter half.
For jocks and athletic people the latter half is interesting; I'm surprised the strategy and planning aspect isn't more acknowledged and appreciated by us nerdy types.
Maybe there is a reason most of the game is not live play.
Classical chess is a terrible game to watch , one of the reasons it doesn’t get the money other sports do . A live stream for the World Cup deciding match may get few thousand watchers at best . Pee wee league football gets more probably .
It is not because chess takes 7 hours, because vast majority of the games are boring, take known lines and end up in an early draw.
I watch test cricket and I find classical chess boring to watch despite having played semi-professionally.
Test cricket goes on for 5 days, baseball goes on hours both are incredibly technical , as is f1 or golf.
I rather watch test cricket than nfl , there is just unconsumable levels of ad to content ratio
It is not because it is long with lot of breaks in the middle of the action to be strategic that it is not as interesting .
There is a reason why NFL gets no traction outside the USA , all other sports I listed have global audiences even baseball
I feel ya, I felt the same way too. I find chess a bit boring too.
Commercials do suck. They do hide some of what is going on in the sidelines and a lot are forced for the TV netwroks.
But players standing around the field or walking around because they have nothing to do - the game is not in their court right now. The coaches are making the next play. That is the game. Its coach vs coach. The players don't do anything without the coach directing them.
Maybe it would help more if the cameras zoomed into the coaches in a heated battle of what play to run next and the game was advertised or listed as coach v. coach that this match up would be more obvious.
It's like the Madden game. The player avatars on the screen are just robots, going through the motions. The actual brains or interesting action is going on with whoever holds the controller. The plays or lines or formations they run and who they put in the game, etc.
Its not like nothing is happening during the dead ball time in football. It's easily the sport where coaching is most important. Baseball by comparison has very little down time, but the game is so boring that the entire game can feel like down time.
Because it's what people grew up doing. Go back 50-80 years, what kind of father-son activities are available?
There's a lot of snarky responses to your comment, but I do think your question has a lot of merit. Watching football/baseball/soccer/basketball isn't like watching an mma match (there's something very primal about how brutal those fights can be), nor is it like watching video games where someone has a shared connection with an activity they do frequently. And the data backs this up. Sports viewership is in decline, and there's a drop in how important sports is to each subsequent generation. And people, imo rightfully, blame things like video games, and social media.
I’m the same way. Hate crowds, hate noise, hate getting drunk.
My hobby of choice is doing outdoor sports like mountain biking, trail running, hiking, camping with 1-4 friends at a time.
Sportsball has basically 0 appeal to me.
On the flip side I am also really into magic the gathering and I can see how others would see that is unappealing as well. Why spend thousands of dollars on cardboard?
For me I think I mostly enjoy being an active participant instead of an observer, which also lends itself to not liking crowds or large groups because it is much harder to participate and usually there is a subset of people who dominate/monopolize the situation in larger groups.
Its just from exposure. If you were exposed to as much football trivia minutae as you are with whatever hobby you like, you’d probably be able to appreciate a football game.
"As someone who didn't grow up with computers, can someone explain the appeal of spending hours alone staring at a screen? Why would you want to be isolated in a dark room for extended periods tapping on a keyboard, when you can step outside and experience real-life activities with people you share a passion with? I don't think someone could pay me to spend my free time glued to a computer (well, maaaaaaybe for $9000). What's the draw? What am I missing?"
It's fair, but sorry, I should've been clearer... I wouldn't want to sit there and watch this on PPV either. Or stream esports from Twitch, for that matter.
It's not just the indoor/outdoor or introvert/extrovert thing. I think it's the idea of passive spectating (that you pay money for) that weirds me out. Even for the things I love, I'd much rather try to do it myself (however poorly) than pay money to watch someone else do it.
Why are you reading HN instead of doing the things people are writing about?
Going to a game isn't passively spectating. It's interaction with other fans, and being part of the show for the TV audience too. It's also something do out in the weather. It's a cultural artifact to observe and inspect like the Eiffel tower.
Heh, funny you mention it. I enjoy reading but I have hard time finishing anything. I have probably started a dozen books in the last year or two and finished... none of them? Same for movies, it's really hard for me to finish one instead of falling asleep or walking away.
> Why are you reading HN instead of doing the things people are writing about?
I'm probably one of those people who spends more time writing than reading on forums. Being longwinded like me doesn't help... sigh. But it's a way to bounce ideas back and forth between people, discuss, debate, get insulted now and then, etc :) HN is one of the more socially interactive things I do, actually.
It feels like many of the IRL things I end up doing with friends are of the "let's do something individually, together" variety... like whether it's a hike or a rock climbing or karaoke or trivia games, most of it is centered around each person being in their own little world and doing their thing and only occasionally making smalltalk about nothing in particular. It's hard for me to do that for very long, vs the concentrated dose of interesting things to discuss on HN. Maybe I'm just bad at real world interactions.
Good points though. Now you've got me wondering if I have some sort of adult ADD, lol. Might be worth reflecting on...
Your perspective isn't unusual; it's a valid approach to engagement with hobbies and interests.
I play a lot of Counter-Strike, but I also find lots of value in watching professional players compete. Observing pros can be incredibly insightful: it showcases the pinnacle of skill and strategy within the game (literally the same game I play), serving as both inspiration and a learning opportunity. It's fascinating to see how far one can excel in a game, providing ideas and setting benchmarks for what's possible.
This blend of "active participation" and "passive spectating" offers new angles to better appreciate and understand the game. It's not just about watching (which I find pretty entertaining on its own); it's about learning and pushing the boundaries of my capabilities by observing the best in the field.
Have you actually tried it, with sympathetic friends? I also used to think I hated such things but when I went to an easy game (not on a super crowded day, not a critical game) I really enjoyed just the camaraderie.
I can't handle large arenas when they are completely packed or there is too much tension in the crowd, so I'd recommend starting small and with a friendly game if you feel the same. Having said that, I found I absolutely hate watching baseball, golf and cricket (edit for reasons: not interested in drinking alcohol all day) but have grown to love sharing intense games like basketball, tennis and football with friends.
Going to a baseball game is, in my experience, 90% an opportunity to sit outside on a nice day drinking beer and maybe 10% an opportunity to watch a game. Of course, stadium beer is fucking exorbitant.
Because you seemingly never went to such a game looking forward to it, with bunch of friends, and just yelled and drank a lot of beers. Like going to pub but way more active.
I generally don't do it neither, but oh boy did you grow up in a plastic bubble? Such an experience is almost impossible to avoid literally anywhere in the world, and folks enjoy it tremendously.
Bubble, broke, bad environment. It happens. The closest I had to that before high school (where I'd at least take a few field trips for national competitions) was playing card games or Pokemon battles or whatnot. But this was an era before people would watch other people play those things and see how much strategy building there can be in those things.
Even if they're not specifically for you, do you understand the social appeal of cons? What about large parties? A boisterous, rowdy, church? High energy lan-party, or coding jam? A concert? A club?
If you do, then you understand the appeal of doing something exciting with people that share that excitement in a loud, uncomfortable place for hours, even if you don't personally find football exciting.
If you don't, then you've learned something about yourself: you have an unusually low tolerance for noise and crowds, which is valuable information. There's a lot of people like you, but even more that aren't.
Then we moved into an apartment across the street from Oracle Park, where the SF giants play.
Early in the season they have a sale where you can pick up $5 tickets. My wife and I try to buy tickets for one game out of each home series.
A day with my wife sitting outside in the beautiful northern California weather, with beautiful views of the bay and city, drinking cold beer and eating pizza. At first I was like "why do people do this", now I'm like "why didn't I do this sooner".
It's nice to sit in the park, eat a hot dog or pizza slice, drink a beer and watch some sport. Take away all the advertising and hype BS and just enjoy it for what it is at its core. Play.
Oracle Park is kind of uniquely great, though. Amazing views and right next to public transportation. The more typical experience is something like Kauffman Stadium, where the only way to get there is by car and there is nothing to look at other than the game itself.
For many it's not uncomfortable, and neither is loud any kind of a downside.
Sports is unique as a form of drama in which the outcome isn't known (to anyone) in advance. (Conspiracy accusations aside.) There's a type of suspense possible with sports that doesn't exist in any other kind of entertainment.
And it's not just the outcome that's unpredictable, there's random feats, drama, narratives, entertainment that can come out nowhere that no one would have ever written. A pitcher hitting a bird in mid air. A baseball bouncing off a wall, hitting the ground, then a player's thigh, then going over the wall. In the late innings of a close playoff game. The game has to be stopped while it's figured out what that means because it hasn't happened in decades, if ever. A football player running into the butt of his teammate with his face, falling down and fumbling.
Many games are mundane but the exciting or funny moments arise from the vast hours and repetition, there's a lot of opportunities for the unexpected. Again, other forms of drama are more predictable not just in their outcomes but in where and when the beats will happen.
That itself isn't enough on its own, you also need to care about the outcome in order for that suspense to be enjoyable. Like religion, it helps to have been indoctrinated by family or geography when you were young. I don't think I'd have been able to start caring as an adult.
It's also dependable in a way your favorite shows, books, movies, musicians aren't. It's reliably been there for every year of my life, for over 35 years. That's meaningful.
(Though there's the occasional strike, and some people are unlucky enough for their team to leave their city.)
It's not reliably exciting, any one game can be boring, any one year (or decade) can be fruitless. But it amounts to something much more than the sum of its parts.
Some fans are more drawn to the strategy and mechanics of the game, but for me it's more about the history and mythology of the team and the sport in my own life.
And I haven't even touched on the social aspect, or the off-field drama that can be its own kind of meta entertainment.
I've been to a single football (association) game in my life and I prefer the TV version of it as well.
At home I get to see the action from multiple camera angles, there's a guy who knows what's going on narrating the game for me, I can watch replays of the best moments.
What can the stadium experience bring to the table that beats all that? The feeling of unity with other fans? Well, I didn't root for any team in particular, and the loud crowds of people around me only made me uncomfortable.
viewing an nfl game in a packed stadium is the closest thing a modern human gets to being in the roman colosseum. the brutality of the nfl games creates an atmosphere that’s different from other sporting events, you’re standing up and cheering for other humans attacking each other
it’s a totally different vibe compared to watching it at home
There's nothing wrong with asking others for a perspective you never had. You gotta learn somehow and "well people have different opinions and hobbies" isn't a very satisfying answer.
It seems more and more that sports tickets are exclusively available on Ticketmaster, who charges pretty significant fees of around ~18%. If you need to resell the ticket, they take their 18% again.
I've also seen A/B tests where they experiment with higher fees. Using a different browser sometimes gets you a different price.
> It seems more and more that sports tickets are exclusively available on Ticketmaster
For US pro sports, I think it’s actually trending away from Ticketmaster. Baseball (MLB) tickets are now directly sold through the MLB. At least some (all?) American Football (NFL) teams have started partnering with SeatGeek. Basketball (NBA) and Ice Hockey (NHL) still seem to be through Ticketmaster.
Except for the part of the article where it notes that there are unsold cheap seats, which the venue refuses to sell at the market price, as that might lower the overall price.
Which means, the article actually boils down to “supply is being artificially constrained to increase the price, and maximize profit”
And except for the part where they explain that teams collect all the money from thr expensive seats and have to share the revenue from cheap ones with NFL, so they remove cheap seats and build expensive ones
If you want to dumb down all arguments the reason why it's so unaffordable is that tickets are more expensive. But you're still allowed to look for why, which the article did, and one of the explanation is this one.
Im surprised it’s only talking about supply demand dynamics. In my experience, the ticket selling mafia is half the cost in tickets. Recently I was looking for NFL tickets and the fees on a $280 ticket were almost 90-120 range depending on the site you used. That’s almost a 40% inflation for no reason.
Ah, yes, the free market is the unquestionable discussion-ending answer to all things good and moral in life. All pleasure in life shall be allocated to the highest bidder, and that shall be good and just according to the inalienable principles of Social Darwinism.
Baseball seems like its priced well. In markets that don’t fill the stadium you can usually get a $15 ticket. In markets that do fill the stadium the ticket is probably 4x as expensive but the stadium fills anyhow.
Minor League baseball is especially fun. You sit closer to the game. Depending on the team and location, snacks are reasonable. Players may not be MLB level, but they're certainly no slouches. And tickets can go as low as $6.
It's been many years since I went to a San Jose Giants game, but I picked up free tickets at the hardware store and all of the food was only a little overpriced (and very delicious), I don't drink, but I don't think the beer was too expensive. Movie theater/airport pricing, rather than theme park pricing.
Not only that, but the fans are much more pleasant to be around and even watch on TV. I'd much rather see the crowd shots on TV for a college game than a pro game.
at least they WERE. Now with NIL, the transfer portal, and national "conferences" that have no relation to geography, student tickets will start being as unaffordable as pro tickets.
I enjoy college sports a lot more the pro sports as well. It's fun to have new players every year and I like how college basketball feels much faster paced than the NBA. In college it feels like the players are sprinting in circles at 150%. In the NBA the players seem much more calm, slow and methodical which is less interesting to watch for me.
I love that CNN has this lite view. I saw sometime ago someone used it to build a bridge to clients using Gopher for really low transfer rate access to news.
Yeah, I was wondering what personal blog could produce something that sounded like a genuine journalistic article, then realized midway that I was reading CNN. Kudos to them
I wish we had a global news broadcast system, like XM Radio but for plaintext snippets that they just broadcast everywhere for anyone to receive. Would be a cool thing for Starlink to do pro bono (and a super enticing target for propaganda and advertising).
I think this is where VR can really be a game changer. There are so many experiences that have become crazy expensive due to their inherently limited supply in the face of increasing wealth. I think most of them could not be replaced, but supplemented by experiences that are able to scale with zero marginal cost. This would also have the advantage of reducing the price of the real experience as some of the demand shifts to the virtual one. See also the Taylor Swift fiasco which started a whole political thing about ticketmaster when the problem was really just that there were 5x as many people who wanted to go as tickets. Yes ticketmaseter sucks, but when faced with that supply and demand imbalance anyone who wants a ticket is going to have a bad time.
Feels like the opposite of a case where VR can be a game changer.
TV coverage already has better viewing angles than going to the game. People go to the game for a day out, to actually be there when it happens, to make noise the players hear and to celebrate with tens of thousands of other people. You don't get that with a headset.
Why not? The headset experience can imitate being at the game, allowing you to interact with other headset viewers and experience the roar of the crowd. I think it would be very different from watching on TV if executed correctly. Watching on TV is inherently a bit of a lonely experience unless youre at bar or the like, but a headset does not have to be at all.
You can experience the roar of the crowd with any decent audio system, but it's not the same as participating in it. Not really seeing how the headset helps me interact with other viewers either: I can't high five them, hug them, buy them food and drink [because they're my friends or family I'm meeting at the game] or even see what they're doing.
I mean the whole point is that you can high five or hug the other fans youre sitting next to. Obviously its not the same as physically doing it, but its still better than sitting on your coach alone. I dont think most fans enjoy paying 4x prices for food and drink at games, but maybe thats just me.
You can't high five or hug people with a headset, and frankly I'd feel less lonely watching on my TV than donning some sort of haptic feedback suit so I can interact physically with simulated friends
I think quite a lot of people enjoy buying their friends and family food and drink, even if it is overpriced and not that tasty. Beats buying lootboxes for fake people at any rate
People generally watch sports with family and friends - same as attending a game in person. VR is very antisocial for an event like a game. I can see how it would solve for folks who want to share the experience remotely with each other, but I'd gather that's a very niche / small market. I, personally, don't want to experience a game with everyone in the room wearing a headset.
The only thing I want a strong VR headset for is so I can have large screens with me when I travel. I really have no desire to engage with AR through what the current state of VR headsets is.
I guess tickets were underpriced before? The demand is clearly outstripping supply. Can't even blame this one on the hedge funds.