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Sports fans have never needed any extra incentive to go see their favorite team compete live. Often the spirit of competition, home town pride and family bonding experiences are reason enough to take your buddies out to the ball game. Too often however, team management believes that they need to offer "promotions" or hold "give-aways" in order to fill the seats that don't already hold die hard fans. Some of these promotions can be fun. After all, who doesn't enjoy a free bobble-head doll for the car dashboard? Unfortunately, some of these promotions that stadiums hold have been terrible ideas and met with utter disregard or, worse, lead to riots and trashing. Below are arguably the 14 worst stadium promotions of all time:

Ball Night

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The scene was Dodgers stadium on August 8th, 1995. All attendees of a game against the Cardinals received a free regulation size (and weight) baseball. The day was known as "Ball Day" and what should have been a fun day where both father and son leave with a neat souvenir turned into one of the worst displays of sportsmanship ever witnessed. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Raul Mondesi struck out. Rather than taking his lumps and acting like a stand up role model, he and another player exploded on the umpire, arguing the call so indignantly that they were ejected from the game. This upset caused the angry crowd to throw over 200 of the souvenir balls onto the field. The team had to be ushered into the dugout for safety, resulting in an incredibly rare major league forfeit.

Disco Demolition Night

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The concept was a noble one: At Comiskey Park on Thursday, July 12, 1979, the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers were set to go head to head. In a poorly anticipated event organized by White Sox management, fans were encouraged to being disco records they no longer wanted to the stadium in exchange for admission. During a break, the records were set to be thrown into a crate and blown up in center field.

White Sox management hoped that the event would draw about 5,000 people. Instead, a raucous crowd of 75,000 flooded the stadium, cramming it beyond capacity. The crowd drank, smoked lots of marijuana and quickly got the idea to start throwing their thousands of records like Frisbees down at the field. This act quickly turned into fans storming the field, throwing beer and firecrackers from the stands, and resulting in the last forfeit of a game in the American League. "They would slice around you and stick in the ground," Rusty Staub, a player for the Tigers, said. "It wasn't just one, it was many. Oh, God almighty, I've never seen anything so dangerous in my life. I begged the guys to put on their batting helmets."

Free Ice Hockey Helmet Night

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On February 27th, 2009, the Chicago Blackhawks made a mistake that several other teams on this list have made in the past. The first several thousand people to show up for the game received a free Blackhawks hardhat to wear during the event. Early in the game, Jonathan Toews tipped the puck into the goal for his first career hat trick, resulting in a massive heaving of those helmets onto the ice. After so many fans wasted their souvenirs on this display of excitement, the goal was actually called back on a technicality. As the game progressed and fans drank more, the components for yet another massive hurling of those remaining helmets began to come together. Finally in the third, Jonathan Toews scored the same hat trick, legitimately this time, and down came the helmets. The stadium likely received back three-quarters of the helmets they gave out that night. Check out the video of the first throw taking place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2YnZdoV1bc

All You Can Eat Seats

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In the most disgusting display of over-indulgence yet seen at a ballpark, Dodgers stadium now offers "All You Can Eat Seats." For $35.00, you can stuff yourself sick of hotdogs, nachos, soda, peanuts and the like. Many people have reportedly gorged themselves to the point of vomiting on low-grade ballpark junk. Baseball journalist Neal Pollack writes that the seats were "A gluttonous orgy of stupidity� The smell was unbearable. By the end of the game, it was like sitting in a sewer."

One reporter writes regarding his experience with the all you can eat section: "Tonight," I wrote in my notebook, "represents everything that's wrong with America. Then again, this is one of the most multicultural experiences of my life. All branches of the human family are slowly poisoning themselves happily, together, communal. I'm privileged to be witnessing the mass suicide of a species."

10-Cent Beer Night

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For the first of three terrible promotions from Cleveland management, one has to question the logic behind ten-cent beer night. At first it sounds fun, sell ten ounce cups of beer for ten cents. This strategy might work for a fun night at the frat house, but at a ballpark a little bit of forethought would have revealed this idea as tragically illogical. Management would have done well to realize that that sports fans tend to get rowdy, drunk people tend get rowdy, and drunk sports fans tend to get really rowdy. Fans jumped onto the field to meet the players, flashed the cameras and mooned the bullpen. Later, when the game was tied and the people were even more intoxicated, the fans threw rocks, batteries, golf balls, chairs and various trash onto the field. There even came a point in all the mayhem that a group of attendees stole the glove off of the Rangers right fielder. After this single debacle, the American League president abrogated any similar promotions in the future, claiming "There was no question that beer played a great part in the affair."

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