At Chichen Itza, tour guides there will tell you that people there actually competed in pelota (ball) games for the honor of being sacrificed. According to them, it was something the competitors actively sought out. Unsurprisingly, it seems as though this is false. The losers of the game were the ones sacrificed during certain periods in Mayan history. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame#Human_sa...