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Old 11-18-2012, 02:04 PM   #447
DaFace DaFace is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by siberian khatru View Post
I guess nobody bothered to read the link I posted. Here's an excerpt:

The debate, like most sports law arguments, is nuanced and complex. Classic public forum free-speech issues, for example, would generally not be applicable at privately owned facilities hosting games, like college basketball games at private universities. Privately owned teams can also contend that a fan’s purchase of a ticket is in fact a contract with the team to conform to a code of conduct, which could include a prohibition on excessive yelling at the officials. But many stadiums and arenas constructed with some public financing, or built on state land or land operated by a municipal authority, could be viewed as public entities. In that setting, a government cannot force citizens to surrender constitutional rights like free speech.

There is some leeway, but where is the line drawn, and on which side does a fan yelling at a referee stand?

“It is an interesting question, and we don’t have an exemplary test case that settles every aspect,” said Scott Rosner, a sports business and law professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “But traditionally, courts have come down on the side that free speech at a sporting event has limits. It is a right that is revocable — maybe because the few fans that come before courts have really overdone it.”

......

But the legal precedents for those interpretations are hard to come by, perhaps for two contrasting reasons, lawyers said. Fans who might have good cases for seemingly unjust ejections are rarely arrested; they are only removed from the event. They may be upset afterward but not aggrieved enough to follow through with a lengthy lawsuit. The other reason is that when a fan does file a civil suit over an ejection, it is almost always settled before a trial because team owners and arena owners fear a landmark case establishing fans’ rights.

“Imagine if a higher court took on such a case?” said Mark Conrad, an associate professor of sports law at Fordham University’s School of Business. “Facility owners would be quaking over anything like that because it could open the floodgates.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/sp...l?pagewanted=2

Is there anything written on the back of the tickets, or any signs posted in the parking lot, that prohibit handing out literature or anything like that?
Good to know, though I doubt anything changes here. I think the best we can hope for is that the media makes a stink about it.
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