Fans Overexcitement At Games example essay topic

Who Is To Blame? At a home game against the Indianapolis Pacers, Detroit Pistons Center Ben Wallace reacted with fury against Pacer's forward Ron Artest after a hard technical foul by Artest. An argument ensued followed by a shoving match between the two which got both teams involved. In a matter of minutes the brawl escalated into the seats of the fans, with some fans throwing fists and full cups of beer at the athlete, prompting what began as a simple altercation on the court into all out mayhem. Ron Artest, Anthony Johnson, David Harrison, Jermaine O'Neal and Stephen Jackson of the pacers and Ben Wallace of the Detroit Pistons as a result missed a significant portion of the regular season from suspensions as a result. Ron Artest was suspended for the remainder of the season.

Four fans were banned from the home arena of the Detroit Pistons and lost his season tickets for future home games. The five suspended players of the Indiana Pacers as well as the four fans with ticket bans face charges in August in a Michigan Courtroom (Corbin). When situations occur when the fans and the athletes get into confrontations, both the athlete and the fans involved must be held responsible. Too often fans get too rowdy and incite confrontations, by throwing cups of beer, chairs, fists and at times even screaming racial slurs. In almost every case of player / fan altercations, the athlete is viewed as the perpetrator in the eye of public opinion. In the view of many major media outlets such as ESPN and various network and cable news segments, and as well as in those of sportswriters, the fans have leverage because their tickets, concessions, and their contributions in television ratings collectively pay for the salaries of these athletes.

In other words, the fans pay the bills of the athlete, so it's almost as if they can do no wrong. However the flaw in this logic is that too little blame is placed on the fan and management's lack of control of their behavior. In the case such as the one which the riot occurred in Detroit, fans should be held just as accountable as the athletes and justice should be served not only within the jurisdiction of the NBA, but also of the law. One detail which must not be lost is that fights occur in both levels of sport, fans among fans and athletes among athletes. These occurrences are not sport specific, as they occur across a broad plane of sports, from basketball to football to little league softball.

Fans' overexcitement at games is what leads to the confrontations. The overexcitement is encouraged and in some cases triggered by sports organizations, to get the home team "pumped up". The combination of stimulants such as music, alcohol, team rivalries and aggressive play on the field of play are a combination of methodical tactics used by teams and owners to get the most excitement out of fans. The end result is a mass of 12,000-plus inebriated fans who believe to be the "12th player".

This in turn makes the fans believe they must do whatever is possible to annoy and distract the opposing teams. As a result it is a commonplace tactic to sell alcohol to get the fans rowdier. However the results of those strategies are not always end well. For example, during a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park against division rival New York Yankees, a fan in the stands made the decision to strike Gary Sheffield as he was making a routine catch in the outfield, near the bleachers. Sheffield showed restraint when he was hit by the fan and did not strike the fan back in the same manner, instead pushing him away, avoiding any further incidence.

Had the players in the NBA done the same when confronted by fans, then the extended brawl involving players and fans could have been prevented. However when violence occurs during games, it seems that in some cases, restraint is almost non-existent, as if fans and players get such an adrenaline rush that a part of their conscious is lost. These acts of violence occur mostly during rivalry or division games. The Pacers-Pistons brawl occurred I n a game which was widely viewed as a playoff preview, or at least a sign of the direction of the division as it was a game between the two top teams in the division. Same as in the Red Sox games against the Yankees. In division games, the common perception is that an extra emphasis is placed on the game, resulting in extra effort by the players.

However that extra effort could spill out into forms of violence when focus is turned away from the game by screaming, violent and verbally abusive fans. The behavior by those fans also happens to be the type of behavior which incites riots like the ones experienced by the campus of UMASS (University Of Massachusetts) Dartmouth following each of the Red Sox Playoff wins, culminating in an incident in which near 20 students were arrested (Standard Times). The previous examples were of the relationships between fans and professional athletes; however fan violence also occurs at the little league level, involving children. The fans at high school and children's sports games aren't as disconnected as those at professional games; these are friends and families attending.

Parents and family members get even more emotional in games and more frequently, and the lives of teenagers and adolescents are at stake when violence takes place. Therefore when a fight breaks out in the stands between fans in these games, the player's lives are being impacted. The lives of children are impacted by the results. In Pico Riviera, California, two brothers were arrested for beating an elderly football coach during a Junior All American Football Game. During a game a brawl broke out, and a recording showed both men assaulting the 67 year old coach. Both brothers were convicted of felony assault.

One will be serving five years of his Prison Sentence, the other 2 years, after both pleaded no contest ("Violence in Youth Sports"). What must be taken into consideration is that the game was an All American Football Game, which means that it was a game for honor students who excel in both the classroom and on the field, yet the game was tarnished by brawling spectators. However, even though this is an extreme case, it is not the worst as what can happen in a game. In Palmdale, California after a Pony League Baseball game, a 13-year-old player clubbed a 15-year-old over the head with an aluminum baseball bat after being teased after losing a baseball game.

Jay Croom, a longtime Pony League parent commented that 'Jeremy apparently said something like, 'How could you lose to a team with no wins... I don't think Jeremy's intention was to start a fight, but when you know other baseball players, you give them a hard time. It's called razzing". Croom mater called the 13-year-old a "gamer", citing how emotional he gets about the game (Becerra and Gorman).

The source of the fan violence in sports is not solely based on any single factor such as emotions, excitement, adrenaline rush, or inebriation. No single factor alone named in this essay could be enough to make someone to become violent; it must be a combination of factors. The focus of the athlete is on the performance at hand. On the court, on the field, or the rink, if a player is playing, that is where his or her energy is focused. The attention of the fan is on all of the intangibles as well as the game itself.

Therefore when a fan strikes another person, it is after a conscious thought process that validates their action as correct and the action of athletes in response in most cases is reactionary, which makes the fan at fault. For instance, Ron Artest had no intention of going into the stands to fight a fan over throwing a cup of soda at his chest; however the fan responsible could possibly have planned the repercussions of throwing a full cup. Therefore the question remains to be answered as whether or not the people who do these things inebriated. Considering that a lot of violence that takes place in game settings is due to alcohol, the National Crime Prevention Council is leading a movement to ban all drugs from sporting events. One of the key components in their movement is "controlled alcohol consumption" for all sporting events, so that it could possibly help make sure that not everyone in a game is endangered by those under the influence of alcohol ("Strategy: Banning Drugs From Public Events"). Possibly if a movement like this could gain momentum, this could slow the pace or at least decrease the frequency of fan violence at sporting events.

Bibliography

Corbin, Mike "Trial Date Set for Pacer Players Involved in Brawl". 22 Apr. 2005.
WISH TV. Online. web (24 Apr. 2005) "Strategy: Banning Drugs From Public Events".
Online. web (23 Apr 2005) Becerra, Hector and Gorman, Anna.
Ballplayer, 13, Allegedly Kills Boy With Bat at Palmdale Park". 14 Apr 2005.
Online. web (24 Apr 2005) Violence in Youth Sports.
Felony Assault at San Gabriel Valley Junior All American Football Game". Online. web in youth sports. htm (25 Apr 2005) Standard Times.
21 Oct. 2004.
web (24 Apr 2005).