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    The San Diego Padres Found a Way to Monetize Bad Baseball

    By building a promotion around poor on-field performance, the team may have offered a grim look at the future of one of pro sports’ most controversial practices: tanking.
    by Jeremy Venook Aug 30, 2018 6 minutes
    Source: Gregory Bull / AP

    The San Diego Padres just wrapped up one of the odder promotions in baseball history. For $99, a fan could purchase a “Five-Win Pass,” which provided a ticket to every home game until either the team won five or the season ended, on September 30. The deal rested on a simple fact: The Padres are bad. After the offer went into effect on July 27, it took 17 games in their native Petco Park for them to win five. In other words, a fan who bought in early could have gotten 12 extra tickets for their investment—a great deal, as long as they didn’t mind watching awful baseball.

    The promotion, which ended Wednesday, wasn’t technically new; the Padres first during their mediocre 2017 season. Still, the Five-Win Pass’s very existence all but explicitly says the Padres’ owners and management have little interest in winning. As such, the bargain offers important insights into the flawed incentive system (both in Major League

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