For all the good that sports do to unite people of different backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences, the last two weeks have also shown the ugly underbelly of sports, warts and all. Chalk it up to lockdowns, people being out of practice socializing, or folks just releasing a year and half worth of pent up energy and frustration. Whatever you want to call it, the main theme we’ve seen across a variety of leagues in the last few weeks is fans behaving badly.
Depending on what part of the world you’re from, there’s been a wide range of social experiences you may have had since the Earth stood still in March 2020. Some jurisdictions like Florida seem to have done the bare minimum and not really had much in terms of disruptions to your day to day life. Others, such as Ontario which is currently mired in what seems like its hundredth lockdown but is really more like its 4th have had a much different experience than their neighbours to the south. Regardless of where you hail from, it seems that fans have forgotten how to behave in public settings.
Just this week we’ve seen two examples in the NBA of fans clearly crossing the line when interacting with players. Lines they would dare not cross if they weren’t separated by metal barricades and dozens of security guards to hide behind. The first incident took place as Washington Wizards guard Russell Westbrook was leaving the court with an injury. As he headed down the tunnel, you can see a fan dump a bucket of popcorn on him:
Let’s keep in mind, Russ is a 6’3” 200lb mass of sculpted granite. On the other hand if you’re scarfing down a bucket of popcorn after a year long lockdown, you’re probably not in peak physical condition. Would that fan have walked up to Westbrook in the street and done the same in the absence of a security team? I’d venture a guess they wouldn’t.
Not to be outdone, the MSG faithful decided it would be a great idea to spit on Trae Young immediately following a pandemic that ravaged their city for months on end.
With both incidents taking place mere hours apart Adam Silver’s attention is now focused on what’s happening in the stands at NBA games, rather than the on court product itself. This coupled with Kyrie’s comments about returning to Boston (a town with a checkered history of racist comments from the cheap seats directed towards athletes), and suddenly you can see why the NBA has reason to be concerned about its fan/player relationship.
This opinion on Boston fans in particular isn’t just isolated to Kyrie. The list of former Boston athletes and opponents of color to speak up about the problem is long and spans decades. Even Irving’s former teammate (and current Celtic) Marcus Smart supported the Nets star’s statement when he told reporters “It’s hard to hear that and then have them support us as players. It’s kind of sad and sickening.”
Although Silver and the NBA head office may have their hands full at the moment, it would be wrong to say that the NBA is the only league with this issue. Moments after the Edmonton Oilers were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs, the keyboard warriors were out in full force, this time with Oilers’ defenseman Ethan Bear (who is of Cree descent) in their crosshairs.
While it isn’t uncommon for the Twitter-verse to descend into personal attacks, and massive overreactions from fanbases in the heat of the moment, it was the targeted language towards Bear’s ancestry which caught the eye of the entire hockey world in the aftermath of the Jets/Oilers game. Indigenous groups in Canada are some of the most stereotyped, and discriminated against populations to begin with. But sprinkle in heartbreaking OT losses, and suddenly people who claim to be “fans” of a team feel as though they have carte blanche to spew some of the most vile sentences you could think of at a 23 year old athlete.
To their credit, the Oilers rallied around their teammate with GM Kevin Holland stating “I feel sick for him…I’m disappointed for him that he would get this kind of abuse. It’s unacceptable.” Connor McDavid also issued a statement to his social media pages:
The organization released a joint statement with Bear as a further display of solidarity:
Things have gotten so out of control at sporting events that we just saw a near stampede of middle aged men on the 18th fairway at the PGA Championship. Is it cool to see things like Phil or Tiger strutting down the 18th when something historic is happening? Yes. Will it be concerning if it becomes a regular occurrence? Also yes. What happens if a fan is hurt, or worse, a player is hurt in the chaos of a scene like we just saw? When even buttoned down sports like golf are losing control of the fan/player experience you know something is out of whack at live events these days.
Don’t worry, baseball has gotten in on the fun too with fans returning to the stands. I personally counted at least 12 separate “fan fight” videos get circulated around Twitter just last week alone. And those were only the ones where someone had a good camera angle to record the mayhem. God knows how many more incidents like this one actually took place that we didn’t hear about:
Let me remind you, fans have only been allowed back to stadiums for a handful games thus far…
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Manchester United fans have been openly protesting their team’s ownership group for weeks on end now. Gatherings (not surprisingly) eventually got out of control, resulting in fans breaking into Old Trafford and storming the field resulting in a postponement of their team’s upcoming game:
Listen, I’m all for rivalries, and would even argue that sports are better when there’s a healthy dose of dislike between the competitors. But the key words in that last sentence were “between the competitors”. For whatever reason, fans seem to think that by purchasing a ticket to a sporting event, it’s actually a ticket to act like an idiot. Nowhere on a ticket’s fine print does it say that it grants it’s holder release from the social contract of how to behave like an adult in public.
Is it all fans? Absolutely not. I’m sure there’s nothing more that 98% of fans would love to do right now, after the year we’ve just had, than to scarf down some lukewarm pizza, and drink a ridiculously overpriced beer at a sporting event. Count me among them. But the number of incidents where fans are crossing lines appears to be on the rise. And if things keep going like they are, especially in the NBA where even the usually squeaky clean, PR conscious LeBron James is wading in to discuss his displeasure with fans, it’s only a matter of time before we have a Malice at the Palace V 2.0.
Fans are passionate about their teams. They want to see them do well. They take it personally when they fall short of expectations. But this is real life, not fantasy sports. You don’t have any degree of ownership over these players, nor do they “owe you” anything in return. The entire concept of purchasing a ticket to a sporting event is to have the privilege of watching these world class competitors in person. No one is forcing you to shell out hundreds of dollars on seats, buy overpriced merchandise and food, fight traffic to and from the game, and give up hours of your evening to attend an event. You’re choosing to do that. And with the advances in HD TV’s, broadcast quality, and even La-Z-Boy recliners, it’s cheaper, easier, and oftentimes more enjoyable to watch the game from the comfort of your own home.
So for the love of god, if you’re going to go through the hassle of attending a game in person, act like you’ve been there before. Act like an adult. And failing both of these things, at least act like a decent human being, whether in person, or online.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner