One week from today, I head for my San Francisco Giants season-tickets draft at the Canyon Inn, a great little beer-and-burger joint in the foothills of Redwood City near my home in Northern California. There are 81 home games in any given baseball season and eight couples in our particular season-ticket group, meaning each couple will leave the draft with two seats for 10 games a dozen rows behind home plate at freshly renamed Oracle Park. With views of San Francisco Bay, it is—arguably of course—the prettiest park in Major League Baseball.

Successful event organizing takes commitment on both sides of the transaction. And why should it be any different? Photo from the 2019 Florida Powerboat Club Miami Boat Show Poker Run courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix. 

I know what you’re thinking: Why bother? The Giants are going to suck this year. They have an excellent chance of finishing dead last in the National League West. And I agree with you.

But the seats are so damn good and the experience of being close enough to spy the rotation of each pitch is—for me at least—so worth the considerable expensive of being there.

As you’d expect, we have to pay for our tickets when the draft is complete so we bring our checkbooks to meeting. “Dynamic pricing,” meaning that games against marquee teams are more expensive than games against cellar-dwellers, determines the final cost of each 10-game seat package. So from year to year I never know what the cost will be, though usually it’s around $1,500.

But here’s what I do know, year in and year out: If we don’t show up for a game, we don’t get a refund.

And why should we?

Read More: Commentary: The Problem With Refunds