NASCAR racetracks are not government programs, they are not charities, they are not philanthropic organizations that give things away for free. Like every other entity in sports, these venues are businesses, first are foremost. If fans want to see Sprint Cup racing, the tracks have to make money. That doesn't make them evil, that doesn't make them greedy. That is unequivocal, absolute economic fact.

Yet a refrain heard over and over, especially in tight economic times like these, is that the tracks are charging too much for their product. Let's be very clear here -- we're referring to a leisure activity, something people do with their spare money in their spare time, and not a basic necessity like health insurance or electricity. NASCAR is a big-league sport, in many ways on a par with the NFL and Major League Baseball, and tickets to big-league sporting events aren't cheap. We're not talking about Saturday night local tracks here. Stadiums and racetracks are perfectly within their right to charge whatever the market will bear.

That said, a cursory examination of average ticket prices from several professional sports leagues does reveal NASCAR ducats to be rather high-end. According to the Web site of Atlanta Motor Speedway, which hosts the Sprint Cup tour on Sunday, adult tickets for that facility range from $39 to $115, and average out to about $91 apiece. For NASCAR tracks, that's not out of line. A cross-section of six facilities -- Talladega, Charlotte, Martinsville, Atlanta, Texas and Phoenix -- revealed an average price of $88.16. There are some bargains to be had, for sure, like $25 tickets at Phoenix and $39 seats at Lowe's Motor Speedway. But overall, it was difficult to find much for less than $50.

Fast facts

What	Pep Boys Auto 500
When	2:20 p.m. ET Sunday
TV	ABC, 1 p.m. ET
Radio	PRN (Sirius Ch. 128), 1:15 ET

• Track Page | Tickets | Travel

How does that measure up against tickets in other sports? It's hard to say, for more than one reason. Unlike baseball, football, basketball and hockey, NASCAR facilities host relatively few big events every year, and that scarcity drives up prices. If NFL teams played only two or three home games each season, those tickets would be much more expensive as a result. Another issue: Team Marketing Report, the Northbrook, Ill., research firm that calculates average ticket prices for the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball, doesn't do the same for NASCAR. So we'll have to consider our wholly unscientific six-track average mentioned above as a representative sample.

How does it compare? According to Team Marketing Report, the average NFL ticket price for 2008 is $72.20, up 7.9 percent from last season, ranging from a high of $117.84 (New England Patriots) to $51.24 (Buffalo Bills). The average NHL ticket this season is $49.66, with the Toronto Maple Leafs the most expensive at $76.15. The average NBA ticket from last year was $48.83, with the Los Angeles Lakers (no surprise) topping out at $89.24. Major League Baseball tickets rose 10 percent in price this past season, the average being $25.43, with the average Boston Red Sox ticket being the most expensive at $48.40.

So by contrast, that $88.16 NASCAR seat appears a little high, certainly, but not outrageously so. Again, it can't be overstated that tracks have only one or two weekends a year in which to turn a profit, as compared to eight home games in football, 41 in basketball, and 81 in baseball. And none of this is cheap. It's still going to cost you an average of $88.33 to see the Chicago Bears, $42.49 to see the Chicago Cubs, and $60.25 to see the Philadelphia Flyers. Oh, and those are face-value tickets. If the building is sold out, which with the best or most popular teams is usually the case, it's going to cost double or triple that to get a ticket over the Internet or on the street. You're not going to find much for $20, unless you want to sit in the upper deck of a Kansas City Royals game.

Yes, some NASCAR tracks have season-ticket packages, where you have to buy a full slate of events just to get the Sprint Cup race. But then you have the personal seat license, a fixture in newer NFL stadiums, where fans have to pay thousands of dollars just for the opportunity to buy tickets. If you want a lower bowl season ticket in the New York Jets' new stadium, for example, you're going to have to pony up a PSL fee of between $4,000 and $25,000 just to have the privilege of buying the seat. It all kind of puts that $88.16 in perspective.

No question, $88.16 isn't cheap, especially in this unstable economy. The number of empty seats in some of these overbuilt racetracks on a given week certainly reflects that. But there are also some fans out there who can be a little unrealistic, pining for the days when tickets cost only a fraction of what they do today, and the drivers were so accessible that anyone could walk up to Richard Petty in the garage and talk shop. Those days are gone forever. This is now a big-boy sport with a massive, national audience, and ticket prices have risen accordingly. Just because you once got into North Wilkesboro for $20 doesn't mean you're going to be able to buy a seat at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the same price.

Yet the racetracks aren't completely without fault here. Back when Darlington Raceway had two Cup weekends a year and was struggling to sell tickets, the less expensive backstretch grandstand was always full, while the more modern high-rise towers were pockmarked by empty seats. You could see the same thing in the final days of old North Carolina Speedway, where the big backstretch grandstand sat half-empty while fans crowded into the cheap seats. The same phenomenon was apparent two weekends ago at Lowe's Motor Speedway -- plenty of empties in the pricey upper deck overlooking Turn 1, while the backstretch grandstand was much more populated. You'd think track promoters would pick up on this and realize that, while there's still quite a market for high-end tickets, there's even more of a market for seats that aren't expensive, and stand a better chance of being sold.

• NASCAR.COM Track Page

In any sport, ticket prices are always going to be a point of contention between fans who think they're too high and event promoters who want to charge as much as they can. NASCAR is no different. And since sports is often one of the last segments of society to feel the effects of an economic downturn, don't expect prices to come down anytime soon. In fact, given that average NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA and NHL ticket prices have all gone up in the past year -- increases ranging from 3.6 percent in the NBA to 10.1 percent in baseball, according to Team Marketing Report -- NASCAR would be bucking the trend if its tracks were to suddenly slash ticket prices across the board.

Of course, if we continue to see empty seats at some of these overbuilt racetracks, then maybe that's a trend worth bucking.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.