Sports events are just like golf courses. I've been debating golf course managers for years.
These are fixed cost events. If you have 1 person or 1 million people the same amount of money will be spent to run the sporting event or keep a golf course open for a day.
If PITT lowers the ticket prices, sells out, they add no costs. Without getting deep in the finance weeds that means for the most part its a fixed cost event.
The key is to fill seats, get people on the course or in the case of a sports event in the seats to generate revenue, not to keep pricing high and chase people away.
Just like a golf course get them to the course they buy balls, tee's, apparel, food, drinks, etc. All of which is incremental revenue, contribution margin which offsets the fixed cost of the event.
The same holds for sporting events.
I asked our local golf club GM on a day when the course was near empty how much cost would you add if you had another 200 golfers today. He said Zero. I said your pricing is to high. Lower the greens fee and get them on the course.
The same example holds for a sporting event, concert, and other similar events.
Product quality comes into play when it comes to pricing so if you offer a poor product you're pricing should be lower until product quality improves.
And guess what they might like it and become a return customer.