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Is it a marketing gimmick or a way to tone down the glaring sea of empty red seats we often see on TV while watching Pistons games at the Little Caesars Arena?
In a story headlined "Pistons disguise empty LCA seats with black covers," Detroit News reporter Rod Beard writes:
At Little Caesars Arena, there’s a lot less red — the color of all the seats in the arena — after the Pistons added a few thousand black seat covers, sponsored by the Art Van furniture company, on Monday.
The seat covers were added the day after Art Van Elslander, the founder of Art Van company, died at the age of 87. Pistons officials confirmed that the covers are part of a new corporate partnership with Art Van and are not related directly to Van Elslander’s passing. . . .
One of the bigger issues about the red seats was that they've been an eyesore, especially on TV, when there were large pockets of empty seats around the arena. The Pistons have had just five sellouts this season, so the red seats had been a point of emphasis among national media, who have pointed out the Pistons issues with attracting fans in their first year in a new downtown arena they are sharing with the Red Wings.