As many on this blog know, I love watching football. However, I no longer go to games because of the often drunk and unruly fans. I long ago decided not to take the kids to games because of all of the drinking and profanity. It is a real shame because I know other families who have reached the same conclusion. Stadiums are simply no longer family friendly environments unless you want your kids surrounded by profanely spewing drunks. The alternative would be for owners to actually exercise a modicum of responsibility and toss out unruly fans. I have made the same argument for baseball. Their failure to do so was on display in the New England-Kansas City game where Patriots fans flipped off Chiefs Wide Receiver Tyreek Hill after he scored a touchdown in the 4th quarter. They also threw beer on him as shown in the video below. Update: The Patriots identified the fan who threw the beer but apparently did nothing about the other abusive fans. It is good to see this fan banned from the stadium and hopefully we will see more enforcement of basic standards of civility and decorum at these games. The fan has been charged with disorderly conduct.
These fans were not hard to find and easy to recognize. They acted like total thugs. The most obvious response is to ban them all for the year from any games to reaffirm that the team will not tolerate throwing things at opposing team players or acting in such a disgusting fashion.
The Patriots issued the following statement:
How about the other fans flipping off Hill in his face on national television? Did they meet the Patriots fan code because thousands of kids were watching them do so?
Instead, these idiots will be back at the next home game — proud of their disgraceful display on national television.
I paid a lot of money for these seats and I have a right to act like a flaming idiot. No you don’t.
I was a Chargers season ticket holder for many years. One of the great things about the Raiders moving to LA was that now the Oakland fans fought with the LA fans at the San Diego game, and left us alone.
Baseball and football are both dying “sports”. That is because we all resent the amount of money these dorks get paid. I would much rather watch The Nature Show in PBS here in NC. Wildlife is much more interesting than wild humans dressed up like Wild American Indians or Bears or Cardinals.
A friend of mine went to a Boston Bruins game last year and told me that people were so out of control with drinking and obnoxious behavior that the Boston police started arresting people for drunken disorderly….the rest of the crowd quickly quieted down. Perhaps that needs to be the response at all games where this type of behavior occurs. Throwing beer in a player’s face during a game is an assault and should be treated as such by the police.
When I lived in Oakland for many years, I went to dozens of A’s games and a few Raider’s games each year. Nothing would exorcise one’s demons better than to cheer the As while they beat the Yankees and deride the Yankee fans who had arrogantly shown up in their blue leather jackets to gloat. We would boo the Yankee fans as well as their team. Yankee fans invite that. When we lost, we took our defeat, heads bowed, somber, and quietly left the coliseum. That’s one of the reasons one goes to the forum to see Gladiators fight.
However, when going to a Raider’s game, my host would carefully check that I was wearing no color, give me a Raider’s cap to wear as he put on his cap and jacket. At the game onetime, a fan arrived wearing an A’s cap. He was booed viciously until some Samaritan gave him a Raider’s cap to put on. It was a game against the Chiefs. From my vantage point I could scan the coliseum. There was not one spec of red. A Raider’s fan stabbed a San Diego fan at a game in San Diego. The mob goes to contact sports games to see blood. There is a line that should not be crossed, such as throwing beer at a member of the opposing team that just scored a TD, or stabbing a fan. However, the mob must be permitted to express itself.
I remember being at a Raiders home game back in the 70s. Some over-zealous Raiders fans were practicing their beer-tossing skills on Bob Wilkins, a talking head from the local TV station KTVU. This behavior is nothing new. IMHO, the media have started focusing on it because it gets ratings and makes good click bait
“These fans were not hard to find and easy to recognize. They acted like total thugs. Yet, the Patriots did nothing. The most obvious response is to ban them for the year from any games to reaffirm that the team will not tolerate throwing things at opposing team players or acting in such a disgusting fashion.
Instead, these idiots will be back at the next home game — proud of their disgraceful display on national television.”
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Huh? The Patriots did plenty. They identified the offender from the video and banned him from the stadium forever. The matter and video evidence were also turned over to police for charges.
https://www.sbnation.com/2018/10/15/17979716/patriots-fan-beer-tyreek-hill-chiefs-touchdown-police
I’ve heard that the Las Vegas Raiders new stadium will have a court and jail built into the new stadium. Hard to believe where we’ve come as a society. If the weather is good on Sundays, I am outside now.
Seriously, banned for life and some form of legal action. I’ve been to Foxboro and on game day it looks like an armed camp with all of Mass. state police at the stadium. I hope that this kind of behavior is a phenomenon that only happens in the northeast. It should be addressed and whoever did this should be made an example of by the league and the New England Patriots organization.
Independent Bob – I do not follow professional football although I did see the headline and photo for this article before JT gave it to us. Is this player someone worthy of having beer thrown in his face?
I think they’re Democrats, they have a mob mentality.
I keep telling you, watch college ball. They stand for the anthem and the national championship makes more sense.
I disagree about college football. I did an analysis some a few years ago and only of the top ten teams, 53% of the games have a delta greater than 21 points. Only 31% have a score withing 13 points. Most of the top teams only have maybe 3 games that matter or are competitive per year. How is that fun to watch? To me, the top ten should only play each other.
Professor Turley………It is indeed a shame that pro-football games are no longer family friendly.
With the exception of a few schools, fans can still expect a friendly safe environment at college games, I think.
Of course, if your team just beat LSU at home, you might want to leave the parking lot rather quickly 😀
The same goes for Arkansas😁
Football is a dying sport.
The civility among its fan base is not much different from what we are seeing in Lefty politics these days.
fun to play, boring to watch
The NFL can’t or won’t even control their own players, so what makes you think they can control the fans?
Good point, TIN.