Does buying a ticket to a sports game mean that you have to provide a certain level of attentiveness? For example one could be forgiven for bringing a friend along and talking to them the whole time instead of watching the game, but what if you brought a newspaper or a tv and were watching a movie or something? Could you be kicked out of the venue? I would assume that once you’ve paid for your seat you can do pretty much whatever you want as long as you don’t obstruct anyones view or anything.
If you’re not bothering anybody by reading a book or watching a TV of something else, you shouldn’t have to worry about being 86ed.
Come to a sporting event in L.A., you may only find about half the people in attendance paying attention.
Generally if you’ve paid the money and you’re not bothering the other paying customers, who cares what you are doing?
I’ve seen many spouses taken to sporting events who don’t care about the game. I’ve seen people knitting, reading, sleeping. I’ve also seen spouses who get dragged along to cultural events (like an opera) who just sleep through the whole thing.
Upon further thought of this, I would add that if you are sitting in a really good seat for a sporting event, you should pay attention however for two reasons:
- there are safety issues involved (flying balls or pucks)
- people in the cheap seats will see you not paying attention and they will feel resentful of you wasting the price of a good seat.
Hey.
It is perfectly possible to knit and pay attention to a game at the same time. I can’t keep score while I’m knitting (as both involve using my hands) but I can most certainly watch - and keep my hands warmer.
But so long as whatever you’re doing is unobtrusive, I don’t think it matters. (If I can hear your TV, something is wrong. If my view is blocked by your newspaper, something is wrong, but if you’re keeping to yourself, I can’t imagine your being thrown out.)
Of course, this is pre-hideous-levels-of-security. It might be harder to get random electronics into a stadium these days.
What, is this IMHO night? That’s three in a row!
Off to IMHO.
Yep.
Hell, at Pac Bell Park, even the cheap seats are occupied by people who don’t give half a crap about baseball. S’really frustrating. Good thing our broadcast team is good.
When overturning cars in a victory riot, you should leave the ones bearing decals of your team alone.
Most other etiquette faux pas I can forgive, but that one is just rude.
Is it bad sports fan etiquette to boo the visiting team when they enter the basketball court? Okay, so you don’t want to cheer them. But face it, if they didn’t fly all the way out here to play against your team, you wouldn’t have a flippin’ game to watch.
All you’d have is your own home team doing warm-ups on the court.
What fun would that be?
This reminds me of my High School. They used to pass out newspapers at home games and when the visiting team was being introduced, everybody was supposed to feign disinterest by reading the paper. This was banned after about 3 games because parents complained that it was too rude.