Sean Elliott Helps H-E-B Hand Out Free Groceries, Spurs Tickets

H-E-B and the San Antonio Spurs surprised shoppers at three locations on Thursday with free groceries and spurs tickets, turning routine store runs into playoff prizes. The giveaway landed as the Spurs were tied 1-1 with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals, with Game 3 set for Friday and Game 4 on Sunday.

McCreless H-E-B and Sean Elliott

At the McCreless H-E-B near South New Braunfels Avenue and I-37, some shoppers had Spurs legend Sean Elliott scanning their groceries. He called the chance to hand people their groceries for free “amazing.”

Tiara Harris got $170 worth of groceries without paying while shopping for a Spurs watch party. “We was having a little cookout, and a Spurs player ended up paying for our groceries for the party,” she said.

Playoff tickets at the store

H-E-B and Spurs personnel also looked for shoppers wearing Spurs gear at the McCreless store and gave free tickets to one of the games. Christian Flores and Cheyeane Zurita were told they would be getting tickets to Sunday’s game.

Flores reacted, “There’s no way.” Zurita said, “I’m going to cry right now.” Before the surprise, she described the market for seats this way: “And I’m like, regular price is this? Oh my gosh, resale is this? What are we talking about? We gotta take out a loan,” as the cheapest Game 3 tickets on Ticketmaster Thursday afternoon were $337 and Game 4 tickets were at a minimum of $359.

Spurs playoff demand

The shopping trip became more valuable because the Spurs were back in the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2017. That made free playoff seats a different kind of win for fans already facing hundreds of dollars in ticket prices.

Elliott said the groceries were paid for by the Spurs organization, not by him personally. An H-E-B spokeswoman said similar promotions have been done before, but this was the first time this season for the playoffs.