If there is one thing that all col­lege stu­dents love, it is get­ting things for free. Some­times this requires going to a kick­off meet­ing for a club or fra­ter­nity to get pizza. Some­times this requires sign­ing up for a credit card to get a free sand­wich (btw, you shouldn’t do that, your debt gen­er­ally exceeds the price of a sand­wich). But when it comes to col­lege sports, the prod­uct is free, no strings attached.

Nearly all schools allow stu­dents free admis­sion to sport­ing events, and most give away prizes and gifts just for com­ing to the games.

And there are so many sports to choose from. Go to your college’s ath­let­ics web­site and you get a full list of every team’s sched­ule. Since the games are free, you can try out new sports with­out any charge.

The sport that I rec­om­mend attend­ing the most is bas­ket­ball. Even if your team is bad, col­lege bas­ket­ball is one of the most elec­tric envi­ron­ments that you can expe­ri­ence in your life. And at most schools, the stu­dent sec­tion is the clos­est sec­tion to the court.

Even if you don’t like bas­ket­ball, I rec­om­mend giv­ing it a try. I dragged one of my friends to a bas­ket­ball game who had never been to a sport­ing event before. By the end of the game, she was cheer­ing louder than I was.

Another thing to keep track of is if any of your school’s teams qual­ify for the play­offs (in any sport), espe­cially if they get to host a play­off game. In my junior year, I attended a first-round soc­cer play­off game, and it was spec­tac­u­lar. The sta­dium was packed; I got there an hour early and barely found a seat.

So when you want some­thing fun and cheap to do on the week­ends, or you want to ditch class for some free enter­tain­ment, check out some col­lege sports.