Saturday’s preseason NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders involved fights in the stands, two parking lot shootings and a beaten and unconscious in a Candlestick Park bathroom. Philly sports fans took the opportunity to say “YOU GUYS ALWAYS TALK ABOUT PHILLY FANS BUT DERP” and everyone else approached it from a place somewhere between disappointment and disbelief. The beating of Bryan Stow outside Dodger Stadium on baseball’s Opening Day has cast a national spotlight on irrational fan behavior, with the question always boiling down to, “How does this kind of thing happen?”
49ers owner Jed York has decided to become the Biggest Dick You’ll Read About Today by answering that question — he believes there is not enough football, and is willing to use fan shootings as an excuse to push for a longer season. From a horrible interview with KNBR by way of the Sacramento Bee and Pro Football Talk:
“I think when you have a preseason game, when you don’t have your regular-season ticket holders coming to a game, I think that plays a big factor into it,” York said. “I think that’s another reason why the NFL is looking at, you know, trying to revamp the preseason schedule.”
PFT explains why this is horrid in the simplest terms.
The violence at Candlestick Park on Saturday is a time to have serious conversations across the league about how to keep fans safe, not a time to make specious arguments in favor of an 18-game season.
…leaving everyone else free to ask, “How f**king disconnected are you from real life that you think ‘letting poorer people attend the football games’ is the reason why people are shooting each other and beating each other to death in your parking lot?” Extending the season to limit the amount of people without season tickets in your stands is specious, sure, but it’s also a huge statement on class difference, the condescending attitude of owners claiming to be part of a system and only looking out for themselves, and just the biggest pile of sh*t-smelling ignorance ever.
So in meaner terms, do what Pro Football Talk suggested. Really think about how to protect and take care of these people, and don’t wait a tossed battery, a Mountain Dew bottle full of Big Dawg’s acid piss or a fan dying from gunshot wounds to show up and justify your agenda.
[h/t Jimmy Traina]
