Sportsball [Detroit Pistons]

[March 2019 (another post from spring)]

Once in a while, my research lab decides to do something social beyond eating lunch together at the tables thirty feet from our office and sharing memes. I think this idea started because we were talking about bad sports teams (hi, Revolution) and cheap tickets. In particular, cheap tickets for games when two middling to bad teams that nobody cares about play each other on a weeknight. My coworker mentioned that Detroit Pistons (basketball) tickets would probably be pretty cheap, and when we looked, we found a Thursday night game against the Orlando Magic. Two mediocre teams? Check. Lukewarm fanbases? Check. Weeknight? Check. Cheap tickets ($14)? Check. Time for a lab excursion.

We put out the call on Facebook and ended up with 9 interested parties, a decent fraction of the lab. So after work on the determined day, we set off for Detroit. Traffic was light, street parking was reasonably easy to find, and getting into the stadium took less than five minutes. Our cheap seats were up in the balcony, but basketballs are big enough that you can sit in the back of the balcony and still see the ball and follow the game. Same for soccer, but if you ever go to a baseball or hockey game and want to actually, you know, watch the game, maybe pay a little extra to not sit in row ZZZ of the Skydeck, or whatever it is they’re calling the fourth balcony.

View from our seats

As for the game itself, the Pistons led basically the whole time, which wasn’t super exciting, but my blood pressure can always use a break from the Revolution. And sometimes it is nice to see a comfortable win from the team you’re rooting for. Besides the Revolution, I’ve sat through some rather painful sports games courtesy of Cornell athletics and my high school football team. Though I do kind of wish I could have seen the football game between Columbia and Cornell where they were playing to be the team that didn’t finish Ivy League play 0-8. Cornell won that game 3-0. Yes, this was an American football game.

We didn’t have anyone sitting in the row in front of us, so we had almost unimpeded views, we could see the ball, and the game was decent. They had cheerleaders doing routines during the breaks, which was not the real reason I went to the game. The only thing I regret is not bringing my earplugs, because the speakers were right by our heads blasting the whole time. Other than that, for ease of access, cost, and an overall pleasant experience, I’d go to Little Caesar’s Arena for a basketball game again.