I read the Florida Panthers have taken steps to reduce the number of Canadian Maple Leaf fans at home games. They are in a competitive hockey playoff series. It seems unsporting and churlish, even as it probably does not make that much difference. It’s not like they’ll refuse Canadian advertising dollars in the arena.
It seems to have worked…
Yes, it happens a fair amount of time in many sports. It tends to happen in the playoffs more often.
I noted this in another thread recently, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (NFL) used to do something similar for their then-annual home game against the Green Bay Packers in the 1990s, as they discovered that there were often more Packer fans than Bucs fans at those games.
A few years ago, the Milwaukee Brewers would limit presale tickets to Brewers-Cubs games to Wisconsin residences in an attempt to limit the number of Cub fans in Milwaukee. This story is from 2019, back when it was called Miller Park.
Yes, I’ve heard many stories like this.
I was pretty sure that the Panthers themselves did this before, maybe 5-ish years ago? As you can imagine, it’s tough to google because all the results are about right now.
EDIT: Also, I keep reading this thread title as onlyfans, as in the porn site.
In football (soccer), fans tend to be segregated. A ground will have designated “home” and “away” sections. The number of away seats is decided in advance, and they won’t sell more than that - and it’s a small fraction of the total capacity.
Away fans aren’t supposed to sit in the home areas, although it does happen.
There were stories about the Las Vegas Raiders trying this last year. Being Vegas, it’s typical that they have far more ‘away’ fans in the stands than other teams, and the Raiders fans and team were kind of getting annoyed at the situation. They were the only team in the league that didn’t really have the “home field advantage”.
Wasn’t that part of the way that the Raiders were going to make a lot of money? They’re in a destination location so fans will make a weekend of it.
I lived in San Diego in the 80s when the Raiders were in Los Angeles and the Chargers sucked. There were always a significant number of Raiders fans in the audience, maybe a majority. Lots of fights.
Probably, but as it’s worked out, it’s also annoyed a lot of people.
That’s much like the way college sports work in the US.
Typically a stadium or arena will have four categories of seating - home students, away people, season ticket holders, and general admission.
The first is limited to enrolled students of the home team, the second is sold through the opposing school’s athletic department, the third is sold by the home team’s athletic department to (usually) home team alumni, and the general admission category is open to anyone.
So typically you’ll have a sea of the home team’s color in the season ticket and student sections, a smallish blotch of the opposing team’s color, and then a mixture of colors in general admission.
That said I don’t think it’s so much a segregation kind of thing, as fights aren’t nearly as common among US sports fans as they are in Europe, but rather a method to ensure that enough seats are reserved for home team fans.
That just brought back a memory. My dad, after retiring from the corporate world, was an assistant dean at USC. All of his kids were UCLA fans. Maybe twenty years ago before the playoff thing, USC and UCLA were tied for first and the winner would go to the Rose Bowl. He got the fam fifth row seats in the USC section at like the 10 Yard line. We were decked out in our blue and gold in serious enemy territory.
In the closing seconds, USC was driving and a touchdown would win it for them. The UCLA end zone interception was almost right in front of us. It was glorious. There was a ton of not so friendly shit talking throughout the day but never close to violence and we shook hands at the end.
Exactly- even the most heated college rivalries are still pretty friendly affairs. There’s some shit-talking, but it’s not intended as fight provocation.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
Whereas the Braves used to love when the Cubs or Dodgers or Red Sox or Yankees came to town, as that brought in all the expats living in Georgia.
All I’m getting at is that typically fans aren’t separated, and if they are, it’s more along the lines of having dedicated students’ sections so people are guaranteed seats.
It’s not putting the hardcore fans of each side on opposite ends of the stadium because of hooliganism, like they do in some European countries/stadiums.
Are you not familiar with the “Los Angeles” Chargers?
Speaking of Los Angeles, 49ers fans call their stadium “Levi’s South” when we play the Rams there because it’s usually overwhelmed with red. The Rams tried restricting ticket sales to locals for the NFC Championship Game against the 49ers a few years back. It didn’t work, but the Rams managed to win because safety Jaquiski Tartt can’t catch.
Years ago Oklahoma State University stopped selling single game tickets, for their home football games, against the University of Oklahoma.
As OU fans seemed to often outnumber OSU fans at these games.
I agree, it seems unsporting.