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Sales are soft for Friday's game and someone says the word every ticket office reaches for: discount. Jeremy Neisser makes the case that a price cut and a value add are two completely different promotions — one lowers what fans expect to pay from here on out, the other raises what they believe they're getting. He walks through the research on reference pricing, a study of MLB bobblehead promotions from 2012 to 2023 that moved attendance without touching ticket price, and real packages from the Blue Jackets, Bulls, Dynamo, and Rocket City Trash Pandas. Then he gives you the five places to look for value before you ever subtract from the price.

KEY TOPICS COVERED
- Why running discounts often enough quietly retrains what your fans believe a ticket is worth
- What a reference price is, and how a repeated $5 off resets the number in your fan's head
- The difference between changing your price and changing your offer — and why only one of them costs you revenue
- Research showing fans value promotions for being fun, different, and worth talking about, not just for the savings
- Why "we got hats with our tickets" travels further than "I saved $4"
- What an MLB bobblehead study from 2012 to 2023 found about gate giveaways versus special ticket packages — and what both had in common
- Real value-add packages you can copy from the Columbus Blue Jackets, Chicago Bulls, Houston Dynamo, and Rocket City Trash Pandas
- The five buckets every add-on comes from: food, merchandise, access, recognition, and experience
- How to find high-perceived-value add-ons that cost your team close to nothing
- Why the word "free" can make a fan value your giveaway less — and the one-line fix
- How to build exclusivity and scarcity into a value add so it drives a specific game
- The filter to bring into your next promo meeting before anyone reaches for a promo code

TIMESTAMPS
[00:00] – The Monday problem: soft sales, a Friday game, and the instinct to discount
[01:39] – Why discounting feels obvious — we're all trained to hunt for deals
[03:04] – The hidden cost of discounting too often
[03:58] – What a $20 ticket sold for $15 actually communicates to a fan
[04:54] – Reference price explained: the number every fan already carries
[06:15] – The Michael's picture frame problem, and how price sensitivity compounds
[07:10] – Value adds change the offer instead of the price
[08:10] – Why fans value a promotion for more than the savings
[08:39] – The Chandon, Wansink, and Laurent research on what people get out of a promotion
[09:31] – The psychology of getting "a little something extra"
[10:53] – The Savannah Bananas story: what surprise and delight actually looks like
[11:23] – The MLB bobblehead study: giveaways moved attendance up to 13%, ticket packages about 8%
[12:51] – Two approaches, two attendance increases, zero dollars off the ticket
[13:19] – Blue Jackets family value pack, Bulls family packs, and the Houston Dynamo four pack
[14:18] – The five buckets: food, merchandise, access, recognition, experience
[15:46] – Concrete add-on ideas inside each of the five buckets
[17:13] – Low actual cost, high perceived value — and why your building is already full of it
[18:12] – What this means for a GM, external relations director, or ticket sales director
[18:40] – Why "free" can backfire, and how to name the value instead
[20:06] – The question to bring back to your team
[20:35] – Running all five buckets in the meeting before you approve a discount
[21:32] – Final takeaway: our job isn't cheaper tickets, it's a more valuable game

CALL TO ACTION
If this sparked an idea, share the episode with someone in your office — then leave a rating or review on Spotify or Apple. It puts the show in front of more people trying to do exactly what you're doing: grow a fan base and sell more tickets.

QUOTE PULLS
"Discount often enough and you start teaching your fans to wait for the cheaper ticket." — Jeremy Neisser

"I didn't change the price. I changed what you get for it." — Jeremy Neisser

"Two approaches, two real attendance increases, zero dollars off the ticket. They didn't make baseball cheaper — they made going to that baseball game more valuable." — Jeremy Neisser

"Low actual cost, high perceived value. That's the whole game. And your building is full of this stuff — you're just not selling it." — Jeremy Neisser

"Our job isn't to make tickets cheaper. Our job is to make going to the game feel more valuable." — Jeremy Neisser

Links mentioned: 

1. Non-monetary promotions provide benefits beyond saving money
Pierre Chandon, Brian Wansink & Gilles Laurent, Journal of Marketing, “A Benefit Congruency Framework of Sales Promotion Effectiveness.”

Read the Journal of Marketing study

2. Free-gift framing can create a “feeling lucky” effect
Liu, Wei, Yang & Keh, International Journal of Research in Marketing, “Feeling Lucky: How Framing the Target Product as a Free Gift Enhances Purchase Intention.”

This is particularly strong because the researchers ran four studies, including a field experiment involving actual purchases, and found that certain free-gift framing increased feelings of luck, which increased purchase intention. 

Read the Feeling Lucky study

3. Calling something “free” can reduce its perceived value
Priya Raghubir, Journal of Consumer Psychology, “Free Gift with Purchase: Promoting or Discounting the Brand?”

The experiments found evidence that consumers can value a product less when it's offered as a free gift. Providing alternate price/value information helped inhibit that effect — which supports the idea of “Limited-edition hat — a $25 value” rather than simply “FREE HAT!” 

Read Raghubir's free-gift research

4. Sports-specific evidence: special-ticket packages and giveaways increase attendance
International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship, 2026, “Special ticket packages and stadium giveaway promotions and the effect on demand for live sporting events.”

Researchers analyzed MLB bobblehead promotions from 2012–2023 and found special-ticket packages increased paid attendance by 8%, while traditional stadium giveaways increased it by as much as 13%. 

Read the sports marketing study at Emerald Publishing

Real-world sports examples mentioned

Columbus Blue Jackets — Family Value Pack
Starts at $35/person and includes a game ticket, value meal and OhioHealth Chiller skate pass. Blue Jackets Family Value Pack

Chicago Bulls — Family Ticket Packs
Includes a ticket, hot dog, chips and fountain drink. This is a great example because it's so simple: ticket + dinner. Chicago Bulls Family Ticket Packs

Houston Dynamo FC — Family 4-Pack
For 2026, the Dynamo announced a $99 package for Saturday matches that includes four tickets plus $40 in concession credit.  Houston Dynamo 2026 Family 4-Pack

Rocket City Trash Pandas — 2026 promotional calendar
Their official MiLB announcement details their premium giveaways and special-appearance strategy.  Rocket City Trash Pandas 2026 promotions

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