Clear the stands and make pro football a media event.
On Sunday night’s Patriots-Dolphins game, 53-year-old Patriots fan Dale Mooney was beaten to death by an angry Dolphins fan. According to witnesses, Mooney, a long-time ticket holder, got into an altercation with several fans after being taunted numerous times. Unfortunately, a fan repeatedly punched him in the head, sending Mooney to the ground. He leaves behind two kids and a wife.
This isn’t the first time that fights and physical violence have erupted at football games, and circumstances of that sort happen all the time at sporting events worldwide. If game security had stepped in sooner and ejected the Dolphins fans who were taunting Mooney, maybe he would still be alive.
Suppose we take a long view of this matter. It may be time for the League to reconsider how NFL football is presented to fans. During COVID, there weren’t many fans in attendance at games. Because of limited/restricted attendance, we didn’t see incidents of fighting or other drama in the stands.
Because we live in an age where technology is omnipresent, fans can easily view NFL football on any number of available platforms–on their TVs, iPads, phones, and laptop/desktop computers. As for refreshments, the NFL could easily partner with any number of delivery services or even create its own refreshment service, which I’ll call “NFL at Home,” to satisfy fans’ in-game food and snacking needs.
While I’ll acknowledge that neither of my proposals is likely to happen–at least not now–it would be a mistake to view what happened in Foxborough last Sunday night as just “an isolated incident.”
The word “fan” is an abbreviation for fanatic; in this case, fanaticism led to a human dying.
