The Masters Ticket Lottery Is Dumb

Plus: Paying college athletes, sports betting isn’t bad, and pickleball?

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! Be better than the vice president and learn how to handle a trophy today.

Sunday's action at the Masters was perhaps the most engaging golf we've seen since Tiger's amazing win in 2019. Hopefully it didn't make you want to actually attend the tournament, though, because you'll face long odds of getting in. We'll discuss why, and we'll also talk about the NCAA's self-inflicted mess, some news about sports betting, and briefly touch on a pickleball documentary.

Locker Room Links

• There's more money bet on table tennis than many big-name sports. Here's a great breakdown that explains why.
• Even Ohio State's beat writers are slimy (allegedly).
• The father of Red Sox third baseman Alex Bregman is running for New Mexico governor. Meanwhile, "Stephen A. Smith says he has 'no choice' but to contemplate a run for president."
• President Donald Trump and several members of his administration attended Saturday night's UFC fights, with Trump getting the walkout treatment.
• Paige Bueckers signed a deal to play in the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league, then went first overall in the WNBA Draft. (Guess which league will pay her more?)
• Congratulations to the Western Michigan Broncos on their first NCAA hockey national championship!
• Elsewhere in Reason: "Police Tried To Arrest a Paralyzed Man for Kicking Down a Woman's Door"
• This joke is very specific to the kinds of people who subscribe to this newsletter.

https://t.co/6rZB3xMfXo pic.twitter.com/Gtvud7znDG

— Grant (@GrantMN3) April 10, 2025

The Masters Ticket Lottery Is Dumb

There are a lot of things the Masters can get away with that other sporting events can't: cellphones are banned, concessions are super cheap, and there's no advertising on the course. But one thing I can't get behind is the Masters ticket lottery.

Getting tickets to the Masters is not as simple as buying a ticket online or scoping out secondary marketplaces for resale tickets. Aspiring "patrons" (as Augusta National Golf Club calls visitors) have to sign up for the annual ticket lottery in June. Estimates suggest your odds of winning in any given year are under 1 percent.

If you're one of the lucky few and succeed in the ticket lottery, your single-day pass to the tournament is relatively cheap for a sporting event of Masters prestige: $140. If you don't get access through the ticket lottery, and you don't have $17,000 to spend on a premium hospitality ticket, you're out of luck. You can try to pay through the nose for a pass on the secondary market, but Augusta National has a strict ban on resale tickets and might not let you in—so you risk spending $2,500 on a resale ticket, plus hundreds more on flights and lodging, just to get turned away.

This is not a great system for ensuring the people who most want to be there get in. Should a casual fan who can't name any golfers besides Tiger Woods have the same chance as a die-hard who lives and breathes golf? If an aging man wants to cross the Masters off his bucket list, shouldn't he have a better avenue than a lottery with such long odds? Prices, not lotteries, are a great mechanism for distributing scarce items like passes to the Masters.

Augusta National doesn't need the money, obviously, but higher ticket prices would help. Golf fans are dedicated and often wealthy, but raising the price for a day pass to $500 would weed out some casual fans. Placing an application fee on the ticket lottery would help too, even if the fee just gets refunded to those who miss out on tickets—extra steps help distinguish the people who really want to attend and those who just think it sounds like a nice time but don't want to deal with any hassle.

I don't expect the Masters to get rid of its ticket lottery, but the current odds are insane and will probably only get worse. Anything they can do to get the odds to a more reasonable number, like 1 in 10, would be nice.

NCAA Mired in a Mess of Its Own Making

Usually when someone leaves their job in search of more money, it's not a big deal. When college athletes do it, it's apparently still shocking.

Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava is heading for the transfer portal. He was earning $2.2 million and reportedly wanted a raise to $4 million after Tennessee's 10–2 regular season ended with a College Football Playoff bid. But coach Josh Heupel said, "no one is ever bigger than the program" and sent Iamaleava packing.

Tennessee fans are mad at Iamaleava for being so demanding. College football fans are mad at the NCAA for its easy transfer rules. It's a mess, and it's the NCAA's fault.

The NCAA has dragged its feet at every step of the ongoing revolution in college sports. It could have introduced common-sense name, image, and likeness payments 20 years ago amid scandals over players getting free tattoos, jewelry, or meals (not to mention cars or bags of cash from potential agents). It could have then kept transfers restricted, maintaining a veneer of emphasis on the "student" half of "student-athletes" by saying academics were more important than playing time.

But now the cat's out of the bag, and college sports are rapidly moving toward professionalization. It'll be for the best in the end, but the transition is a mess. Now, schools and their plans for next season rely on a judge to maybe, possibly, approve the House settlement, where the NCAA would agree to let schools sign players to revenue-sharing payments. That settlement will only lead to more and more lawsuits on other issues. The NCAA is hoping Congress will bail them out with a new law—unsurprisingly, that place is full of bad ideas.

Legalize It

Did legalized sports betting lead to a flood of new addicts?

A new study from the American Consumer Institute suggests the legalization hasn't been as problematic as some people would have you think. As the report says, "gambling expenditures grew at a slower rate in states that legalized both online and retail sports betting than in states where sports betting remains illegal….This runs counter to claims that legalized sports betting is driving consumer harm through irresponsible spending."

While other studies have looked at statistically weak relationships (correlation is not causation!), the American Consumer Institute study looks at Bureau of Economic Analysis data on how people actually spend their money. It seems legalizing sports betting may help bring it out of the shadows: "Excessive restrictions risk pushing bettors toward unregulated, illegal markets, undermining the very consumer protections policymakers seek to enforce," the study concludes.

A New Pickleball Dink-umentary

Ever felt like you should start getting into pickleball but aren't sure where to start? The documentary Dreambreakers won't help you dink any better at the kitchen line, but it's a great view into what's happened with professional pickleball leagues over the last few years. It's more focused on the business side than on the competitions themselves, but it's an entertaining look at the wild world of competing pickleball leagues. Interviews with players and business leaders give it the same feel as Netflix's Drive to Survive series about Formula 1—especially during behind-the-scenes contract negotiations. (Steve Kuhn, a friend of Reason, plays a big role.)

Dreambreakers is now streaming on Max with a digestible runtime under 90 minutes. Whenever you're ready to learn more about pickleball, go read my award-winning cover story, "Get Your Politics Out of My Pickleball."

Replay of the Week

Allow me to use this space to highlight the soccer team that I own (OK, fine, it's a minuscule fraction of ownership and I have no power). With time dwindling, Detroit City FC was down 2–0 on the road against Phoenix Rising FC. Within four minutes, we'd scored three times to take the win. (The first goal, a midair volley off a long cross, was arguably better than this one.)

HOLY COW!

JECIEL CEDENO WINS IT FOR @DETROITCITYFC ???? pic.twitter.com/7uzZzstQmi

— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) April 13, 2025

That's all for this week. Enjoy watching the real game of the week, when the Halifax Thunderbirds take on the Toronto Rock in the National Lacrosse League on Friday.