NFL vs. unruly fans: League out to protect game day experience

[Rooster]

Kind of a long read but I found it interesting.


NFL vs. unruly fans: League out to protect game day experience

By Michael McCarthy, USA TODAY

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — New York Jets fan Luke Maxson says the NFL's push to crack down on drunken and disruptive fans by limiting tailgating to 3½ hours before each game might be the "final nail" that makes him give up his 16 season tickets.

Maxson, an ad executive from Mahopac, N.Y., and his brother Dave already are exchanging their lower-level seats for upper-deck seats at New York's new $1.6 billion stadium next season to avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars in personal seat license fees. He calls tailgating limits a money grab by teams wanting to force fans to pay for food and drink inside stadiums. If the NFL and its teams are so worried about drunken fans, they should drop alcohol sales and sponsorships, he said before the Jets' game Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

"They can't have it both ways and maintain the loyalty of fans," says Maxson, 60, whose tailgate crew brings a portable bar with two beer taps, four tents, satellite TV and a camper to each Jets home game.

Kevin Grady, 33, hopes tailgating limits will reduce the fan misbehavior he has seen at many NFL stadiums. He points to a tailgater passed out in a trailer more than two hours before the Jets' 1 p.m. kickoff Sunday. "See that guy? Put that in your story," says the teacher from Meriden, Conn.

The conflicting views show the challenge facing the nation's most popular and powerful sports league as it tries to fully implement a crackdown on unruly fans during the second season of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's "Fan Code of Conduct" initiative.

The effort reflects rising concern among league officials that boozed-up, unruly fans are scaring away the family audience at a time when the number and quality of NFL game telecasts are increasing the attractiveness of watching at home for far less money.

Like Maxson, tailgaters across the nation show up at stadium sites well in advance of game time for a Sunday ritual of beers, buddies and burgers. But the NFL office believes the longer some fans tailgate the drunker they get, and the more likely they are to start trouble inside and outside stadiums. Its teams' perspective is slightly different: They want a safer environment, but also worry about driving away their most loyal customers.

So even as the NFL office has hired an outside auditor to evaluate teams' compliance with a set of 43 recommendations it issued this past summer to try to lessen bad behavior by fans, just two of the 32 clubs are complying with the tailgating limit.

Only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers switched to the league's recommended tailgating limit of 3½ hours, according to a team-by-team survey by USA TODAY. The Kansas City Chiefs have limited tailgating to that time frame for several seasons. The other 30 teams continue to allow fans to tailgate for four to six hours before games.

The ominous voices of ticketholders such as Maxson not withstanding, the NFL says other longtime season ticketholders are the ones who asked the league to clamp down on troublemakers ruining their game-day experience.

More than 16 months after he issued his league-wide fan-conduct code, Goodell says many ticket-buyers are noticing the difference.

"Fans are saying it's better and that's what matters," he says in a statement to USA TODAY. "I am hearing that directly and indirectly from fans."

Tailgating limits, however, are "a work in progress," says Jeffrey Miller, the NFL's director of strategic security programs.

"We hope folks will implement this, or gradually work toward the 3½ hours, because we think it provides us with a better opportunity to have fans come into our building in a condition that's not impaired," he says.

Drink sizes being reduced

Besides the tailgating limit, the league office's recommendations this summer included restricting the maximum serving size and number of alcoholic drinks sold in stadiums to no more than two 20-ounce beers; two 6-ounce wines or two 1½-ounce servings of hard liquor per transaction.

The league also called for all clubs to install text-messaging lines so fans can anonymously report troublemakers without leaving their seats.

Teams are embracing these recommendations more warmly than they are the tailgating suggestion. Ten clubs, including the Oakland Raiders and Houston Texans, have reduced their biggest brews this season to comply with the 20-ounce suggestion. Only three teams now serve beers larger than 20 ounces: the Arizona Cardinals, Washington Redskins and Miami Dolphins. The NFL had a leg up here: 19 clubs were at 20 ounces or less last season.

Some fans note the irony of the NFL cracking down on excessive drinking when the league — and its teams, through their own endorsement deals — accepts tens of millions of dollars in sponsorships annually from brewers such as Coors Light and Budweiser.

"The Miami stadium was just named Land Shark Stadium" after Land Shark lager, an Anheuser-Busch product, Anthony Jones, a 46-year-old financial planner, notes outside the Washington Redskins' FedEx Field in Landover, Md.

All 32 clubs now have text-messaging lines. That's up from 29 last season. Overall, NFL teams had received more than 3,200 text messages through Week 9, according to Miller, for an average of 21 per game. Some clubs such as the Dolphins and Tennessee Titans get more than 100 messages a game.

The league office appears to be serious about getting teams to follow its recommendations. An outside firm is currently "auditing" how well each club is implementing the best practices checklist, Miller says. That report is due later this season.

Goodell's code states intoxicated fans engaging in "irresponsible behavior" can be ejected and stripped of their season tickets. That's no idle threat, says Miller, for fans or for the teams.

After each of their home games, clubs are supposed to send league headquarters reports on the number of fan ejections, arrests and text-message reports of unruly behavior.

Through Nov. 9, NFL teams ejected more than 3,700 fans, or an average of 24 per game. Police had arrested 894. Those numbers are about the same at a comparable point last season, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy says.

The Seattle Seahawks, Baltimore Ravens, Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos and Cardinals say they've revoked season tickets for fan-code violations. The Seahawks have canceled seven this season, up from one in all of 2008, team spokeswoman Suzanne Lavender says.

The league plans to conduct at least one fan survey at each game venue this season, Miller says. The goal: quiz up to 8,000 spectators on whether they've noticed any improvement in behavior.

Each team owner will get a "rating" relative to fan-conduct measures. Those who don't measure up, Miller says, will be subject to unspecified "remedial steps" by Goodell. "The commissioner has made it very clear to the owners that the fan-conduct initiative is very important," Miller says. "Not only because it's the right thing to do. It's also a revenue-impact item."

The NFL is surviving the recession better than most pro sports. The league's overall attendance is off 2% through Nov. 16 compared to the same point last season. The average TV ratings and viewership for game telecasts were up 12% and 14% respectively through Nov. 9 compared to same period last year.

The NFL's recommendations

The clubs deciding to pass on some of the league's suggestions offer a variety of reasons. A look at teams' compliance with some of the league office's fan-conduct recommendations:

•Tailgating time limits. The Dallas Cowboys and Broncos don't see enough reason to change. They continue to open parking lots as long as five hours before kickoff.

The Cowboys have "not experienced a large number of problems from tailgating" at owner Jerry Jones' new $1.1 billion stadium, team spokesman Brett Daniels says. "We understand the league guidelines and try to work with them as much as we can. But we have to make some exceptions."

The Broncos don't "disagree" with shorter tailgating, says Mac Freeman, senior vice president of business development. But they "haven't seen tailgating really cause binge drinking" around Invesco Field at Mile High.

Other clubs defer to the public entities that own and operate their home stadiums. The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority — which operates Giants Stadium, the only venue to host two NFL teams — cut tailgating before Jets and New York Giants game to five hours from seven in 2008 and sees no need to reduce it further, authority spokesman John Samerjan says.

The Cardinals, Bears, Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers say cutting tailgating to 3½ hours would create traffic nightmares.

"Our local law enforcement agencies have strongly recommended to us to open our lots five hours prior to the games due to traffic patterns," says Bills spokesman Scott Berchtold.

Time limits only penalize tailgaters who are more interested in food and friendship than they are in booze, says Jets fan Victor Russomano. "The problem's not with tailgaters; it's with irresponsible people."

But Chris Morreale, 40, a tailgater outside Atlanta's Georgia Dome, says: "Definitely we do a lot of drinking. I'm not going to lie to you."

•Smaller beer sizes. There are no limits on how many times a customer can return to concession stands to buy beer. But clubs say their servers are trained to spot fans who've had too much to drink and the employees are allowed to refuse service.

The Cardinals now sell the league's biggest beer at 24 ounces. But state regulations allow customers to buy only 32 ounces of beer at a time, says team spokesman Mark Dalton. So if a fan wants two beers, they have to order two 16-ounce beers.

The Redskins and Dolphins sell 22-ounce beers. The larger size "decreases in some ways the amount some people can drink," says Redskins spokesman Karl Swanson, because it "cuts down the number of times they come back to the concession stand."

The Dolphins are "reviewing cup sizes," says Todd Boyan, general manager at Miami's Land Shark Stadium.

Serving limits won't work any hardships on New Orleans Saints fan Norman Norfleet. "I take care of mine out here," says the 43-year-old U.S. Army sergeant with a laugh between sips of beer on the roof of the Louisiana Superdome's parking lot.

•Police patrols/DUI checkpoints. At the league's suggestion, teams are working more closely with local law enforcement and alcohol control agencies to patrol parking lots and conduct sobriety checkpoints for possible drunk drivers leaving stadiums.

Police stage random DUI checks around the Bills' Ralph Wilson Stadium, says Bills spokesman Berchtold. The Seahawks use undercover officers to monitor "hot spot areas" at Qwest Field, team spokeswoman Lavender says. Some alcohol agencies are sending underage interns to concession stands to check if they'll be served alcohol, says NFL security official Miller.

Some fans salute the league's attempt to police fan misconduct.

Watching fans drinking around San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, Ashley Bennett says the changes were overdue. "I've never seen anything like this," she says. "Just a lot of really drunk people, just really hammered, not even being able to stand up straight."

Contributing: Tom Pedulla in Atlanta; Gary Mihoces in New Orleans; Skip Wood in San Diego; Nate Davis in Landover, Md.; Jim Corbett in Minneapolis; and Tom Ankner in New York.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/footb...nfl-fans_N.htm

[LaChapelle]

Drunken fans hanging out in front of the woman's bathroom are to blame.

[Dayze]

hooray for the tattle tale text line!
gimme a break. i like the line
"Time limits only penalize tailgaters who are more interested in food and friendship than they are in booze, says Jets fan Victor Russomano. "The problem's not with tailgaters; it's with irresponsible people."

Precisely. And, I firmly believe it's a money grab too.

[BigChiefFan]

•Police patrols/DUI checkpoints. At the league's suggestion, teams are working more closely with local law enforcement and alcohol control agencies to patrol parking lots and conduct sobriety checkpoints for possible drunk drivers leaving stadiums.


WTH?

Land of the trained.

[Mile High Mania]

I guess I don't see the issue really... you can't get all the food and drink you need in the 3 1/2 hours?

[Iowanian]

I'm all for having fun, but less people DO need to stop acting like drooling assholes at football games.

[Hydrae]

So if we limit you to only 3 1/2 hours instead of 5 does mean drinking the same amount in a shorter amount of time?

I agree that doing this while accepting millions from the beer companies seems hypocritical.

[MMXcalibur]

The lone game I went to this season with the wife was the Giants/Chiefs debacle and there were at least 4 or 5 fights in the stands including a woman getting punched. I don't know if it was mostly because Giant fans are huge douchebags (Chief fans are saints), but I'm sure alcohol was involved. Tailgaters might not like the restrictions, but some people just can't police themselves and it leads to this crap.....

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Drug Free/Zero Tolerance Zone for adults who supply these assholes with their hard-earned income!

Yay!

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by KCtotheSB

Tailgaters might not like the restrictions, but some people just can't police themselves and it leads to this crap.....

The Chiefs have had the most severe tailgatin restrictions in place for years. Why do you think they call the chiefs personnel in the parking lots, parking nazi's?

[bowener]

Seeing as the chiefs wont be in any late night games or monday nighters anytime soon, I don't think the NFL has to worry too much about people wanting to show up before 8:30am to watch this piece of shit Chiefs team. Maybe, hopefully, in a few seasons they will.

[Rooster]

Originally Posted by Mile High Mania

I guess I don't see the issue really... you can't get all the food and drink you need in the 3 1/2 hours?

It really isn't all that long. Once you find a spot in all the traffic, unload your gear, cook the food, eat the food, pack it up, and walk into the stadium the 3 1/2 hours really do fly by.

I wish it were longer but there are always a-holes that ruin it for everyone.

[notorious]

Make examples of the douches that step out of line.

Word will get around soon enough, problem solved!

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

The Chiefs have had the most severe tailgatin restrictions in place for years. Why do you think they call the chiefs personnel in the parking lots, parking nazi's?

Dad, is that you?

[CHENZ A!]

All you bitches in section 106 keep calling or texting fan security on me for standing and cheering. I've had some nice conversations with them, and all have resulted in me staying. You ****ing morons need to realize that violations are "CONTINUOUS standing" or "using vulgar or offensive language" neither of which I do. So watch the game at home, or stand your fat ass up if you don't like how I cheer. I'm not going anywhere so eat my shit.
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