Hockey Game Expenses – Doing the Math

When I returned from the Houston Aeros Breast Cancer Awareness Hockey Game, I dug out my receipts from my back pocket. It made me think about math:

That was a pretty expensive trip to a hockey game. Especially since the tickets were free!

In the spirit of Dan Meyer’s Any Questions? style of learning, my question arose:

Was it worth it for the Aeros to give me tickets to the hockey game?

Here are some things I need to know before I can arrive at the answer:

What’s the value of the tickets?
How much did I spend?

Answer 1. The tickets we got were $26 each. So my ticket, along with Daughter’s ticket, was $52.

Answer 2. Here’s the total of what she and I “consumed” on non-ticket items:

Two beers ($13.50) (that was me, not us together)
One stuffed animal (the mascot Chilly) $12.50
A cowbell (I’m from the country, I couldn’t resist) $25
One hotdog $6.50
Parking $10

So we spent $67.50 at the hockey game. That’s $15.50 more than the cost of the tickets. Seems like it was worth it for them to give me the tickets.

But did they make money off me?

Just because they got their money back, plus some, doesn’t mean they made money.

Would these tickets have been sold to someone else at full price? And would those people have also spent $67.50?
What was the cost of us being there? And what was the cost of the stuffed animal, the cowbell, the hotdog and the beer?

Answer 1. There were lots of empty seats, so I’m thinking they were leftover seats. Nobody was going to buy them.

Answer 2. Supposing we took up $.05 of air conditioning and maybe $.05 in water (we also washed our hands), it cost them ten cents to have us around. For the things we bought: