I think most people were ticked off at the security guys who made him give it back!
Now in Arena Football if a ball goes into the stands during the game it’s yours to keep
Good summary. Until quite recently, maybe twenty years ago or less, in the match ball in a “soccer” game was just that, the match ball singular. Ball goes into crowd? Play doesn’t restart until it’s returned to the player who takes the throw-in / corner kick / goal kick. However certain competitions now have multiple balls along the sidelines so play can be re-started quicker - a result, I think, of the increasing influence of television and the need to provide continuous action. The general preference, however, is that one ball is used for the whole game - every ball is slightly different and there is a lot of importance placed on getting “a feel for the ball”.
Speaking from my extensive experience of watching Scottish football, it’s very rare for a fan to even attempt to keep the ball that he or she has caught or recovered. The stewards, players and referee are all following where the ball lands - the normal response for a fan is to throw it back on to the field of play straight away. Anyone holding on to it would get roundly abused by his neighbours. An exception to this would be if the home side is defending a slim lead…
A supporter successfully smuggling a ball out of the ground was more probable in the olden days of packed terraces and minimal stewarding.
I didn’t realize the NFL was so strapped for cash.
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It’s not, and not allowing fans to keep footballs is part of the reason why.
Yeah, beacuse Jerry Jones really couldn’t make ends meet if he lost that $200 per game in balls. :rolleyes:
Well they gotta give people some reason to attend.
I’ve seen this repeated a few times, and I know this isn’t GD or anything, but…
…ya got a ‘cite’ for that? Because it sounds an awful lot like an opinion to me.
I’ve been to enough NFL games, in and a part of the ‘drunken lunatic’ areas, where the ball has come to the section. I haven’t seen football fans go nuts for the ball the way MLB fans do.
I don’t claim to know the reason for a fact, but ball cost (for a league that still employs part time officials) seems just as reasonable to me–more so–than the idea that the only thing protecting us cro-magnon football fans from our drunken selves is a ‘no keeps’ rule.
But why would they go nuts if they know they can’t keep it?
That said, you could avoid the nuttery. The behaviour of people actching balls at baseball games is being wildly exaggerrated here; people being jackasses is relatively unusual. The behaviour of fans at MLB games is substantially BETTER than it used to be. It’s largely forgotten now, but back in the 1970s, a major league baseball game was not a place you necessarily wanted to bring children to. People did, of course, but there was a lot of drunkenness and fighting and stuff and people running you over to get a ball was a routine thing.
They improved the situation largely by controlling alcohol sales better, and by getting ushers to enforce rules of basic civility if complaints were raised.
I don’t see why the NFL couldn’t do the same thing.
Andy, I’ll look for a cite. My best friend worked for the Browns and that was his info which I’d heard before from another source. And to me it makes sense. The NFL cares about it’s image more than anything. And drunk fans beating each other for a ball would tarnish that image. That’s not a cite I understand.
The Officials being part time employees has nothing to do with the cost either. Smart forceful people aren’t going to sit around to work 17 weekends a year. They have real jobs. These are the driven people that the NFL wants as officials.
But your comment about the cost of the ball…Average team scores 24 points which is about 4 kicks into the end zone. I’ll toss in three more for misses and that’s 7 balls per team per game. 7 times $50 (ball wholesale) is $350 per team per game.
You really think $350 is a big issue these guys? Really? The ESPN Monday night deal alone is worth $1.9 BILLION per year. This is the most lucrative sports league in the world. Because if we think Jerry Jones was staying up last night wondering where the next $350 is coming from, we might as well wrap up this thread now.
Your numbers translate to about $90,000 a year for the league. Enough dough to hire a couple of part-time officials. 
I’ll apply! For half!
I will accept as fact that the baseball nuttery is at a minimum, with the proliferation of video record serving to make it seem worse than it really is.
I’m sure they could, but it would involve a lot of effort, lost alcohol sales, additional security, etc. The benefit being that a handful of fans get to take home a game ball. Plus, you still have the risk of drunken fans doing stupid things on camera, just to get a ball. I’m not seeing where the upside is for the NFL.
The No Keeps rule is simple, easy to administer, and keeps the nonsense down to a minimum without the fans feeling that they are being unfairly treated by the team.
I’m guessing you’re not a business major.
Anyway, you forgot the “is part” part.
Back when The Pittsburgh Spirit were part of The Major Indoor Soccer League, I caught a ball kicked into the stands. I then fired the ball right back toward the nearest official. Only my throw hit an opposing player in the back of the head. And he was pissed.
A few minutes later, two security guys showed up and asked me why I threw the ball at a player. I angrily explained that I threw the ball back to the field of play and it was everyone’s responsibility to keep their eye on the ball (said so right on the back of the ticket).
My seatmates agreed, very vocally. Security apologized for interrupting our enjoyment of the game.
I’m guessing you’re an hourly employee.
You’re missing the forrest from the trees here brother if you think a multi-billion dollar corporation is going to risk sullying its image to save $200.
You keep thinking small.
Ahem…“forest.”
You are losing me with your argument here. By enforcing a ‘no keeps’ rule, according to you, the NFL is protecting it’s image AND saving something like $350 per game (which works out to almost $90,000 a year–not counting pre-season, practices or playoffs.) It seems to me, that by your thinking, that the NFL has achieved the best of both worlds.
Where the disagreement with you comes in is that simply saving money could be reason enough, and fan behavior could be an incidental by-product, rather than the other way around. The failure to provide even one instance of an official statement indicating as much at least opens the reasons why to debate.
I don’t think football fans see a game ball as a sought-after treasured souvenir the way baseball fans do. Part of that might be tradition, part of that might just be the simple size of the ball (I keep a baseball on my desk-no room for a football.) Considering how the NFL does anything & everything with an eye on the bottom line, I can believe that the league would want balls that go into the stands returned…to the point that it’s probably cost-effective to build & hoist those big nets between the stands & uprights.
Footballs ain’t cheap, and the NFL sells out almost every game anyway. If they struggle with attendance, perhaps you’ll see this policy change. In the meantime, why give away a potential sellable item for free?
I was writing quickly and wasn’t clear.
My point has always been that the $50 ball (or ~$200-300 per game or $90K per year) is a complete non-factor in the equation. Anyone thinking that the NFL, valued at over $33 billion, doesn’t want to lose a football because they are worried about the 50 bucks is so off the mark that I’m flabbergasted. Jerry Jones wouldn’t pick $50 off the ground in front of him.
The NFL is a marketing and sports juggernaut. That isn’t in dispute. About the only thing that can slow this growth down is by tarnishing the image of “the shield” as they call it. That’s why the commissioner is trying to curtail the on field violence. That’s why he’s coming down on off the field lawlessness. That’s why they were concerned about the violence at the Raiders forty-niners game and that’s why the NFL cancelled that game in the future. (That’s also why all sports go after gambling, but that’s another thread).
The NFL is a brutal game, played by many guys you wouldn’t want your sister date. But who does the NFL trot out? The pretty polite boys like Troy Aikman and Tony Dungy. It’s about the image. And a bunch of drunk guys fighting over balls in the end zone is not what the NFL wants on ESPN.
But if people want to think that the billionaires in the NFL put up a screen because they don’t want to lost the $50, I don’t know what else to say.
You are stating an opinion, not a fact. As I’ve pointed out, $50 a ball over the course of the year adds up. The link I provided shows a plain ol’ game used ball selling for over $500. So, is it sound business to give away game balls at not just the loss of $50, but the potential loss of close to $600? How about special games? Playoffs? Super Bowls? Think those balls might sell for more than $500? My $90,000 estimate is merely the cost of the balls. Let’s factor in the ability to sell the game balls…Say 16 weeks X 16 games…let’s say 5 balls a game at $250 per ball…So add another $250,000 or so to my $90,000 total. Not including playoffs. And that’s per year. If you have to insist upon that money simply being chump change and has no meaning to the NFL’s bottom line…perhaps you can reconsider your assessment?
Also, I’d like a real cite for that $33 Billion. Perhaps you meant 3.3?
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The NFL is a marketing and sports juggernaut. That isn’t in dispute. About the only thing that can slow this growth down is by tarnishing the image of “the shield” as they call it. That’s why the commissioner is trying to curtail the on field violence. That’s why he’s coming down on off the field lawlessness. That’s why they were concerned about the violence at the Raiders forty-niners game and that’s why the NFL cancelled that game in the future. (That’s also why all sports go after gambling, but that’s another thread).
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I won’t argue with anything you said here, but I’ll point out that it has nothing to do with game balls or letting fans keep them.
[QUOTE=spifflog]
The NFL is a brutal game, played by many guys you wouldn’t want your sister date. But who does the NFL trot out? The pretty polite boys like Troy Aikman and Tony Dungy. It’s about the image. And a bunch of drunk guys fighting over balls in the end zone is not what the NFL wants on ESPN.
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I don’t know why professional broadcasters are your examples of who the NFL ‘trots out.’ The NFL trots out every player. Players are mandated by the league to be available to the media post game. Do you watch NFL football? You’re just as likely to see Ben Rothlisberger of Michael Vick doing press as you are Eli Manning. Even still, of course the NFL wants to maintain a positive image…that’s good business. If you can produce a statement, quote, inference…anything from anyone in the NFL that even implies that the main reason they want the balls back is the brutality of drunken fans fighting over the ball, show me. Until then, I’ll go along thinking that the league (a league that charges it’s fans PSLs for the mere right to buy season tickets) will hang onto thousands of potential dollars rather than give it away.
Why don’t they give hot dogs away? It costs them nothing, and fans like free hot dogs. Maybe their ability to charge $5 for one has something to do with it?
[QUOTE=spifflog]
But if people want to think that the billionaires in the NFL put up a screen because they don’t want to lost the $50, I don’t know what else to say.
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You could say to yourself “Maybe my opinions aren’t always right.”
I’m in the camp with the NFL not wanting to have a drunken fan incident. Since the NFL is a weekly league, played during the fall and winter drawing huge tv audiences, they don’t want a violent incident in the stands to be shown all week on ESPN.
This makes no sense. Where have I even implied that the NFL would “risk sullying its image” to save $200? You claim balls going into the stands causes fans to fight, sullying the league’s reputation. I claim the league cares about losing money on balls going into the stands. A net prevents both of those. It’s not either/or. They’re protecting their image (according to you) and saving money. Your above statement is very confusing.
[QUOTE=spifflog]
Anyone thinking that the NFL, valued at over $33 billion, doesn’t want to lose a football because they are worried about the 50 bucks is so off the mark that I’m flabbergasted. Jerry Jones wouldn’t pick $50 off the ground in front of him.
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A fine business model you propose.
Walmart loss-prevention employee (to manager): “That person is stealing a lamp.”
Walmart manager: “Eh, let him go; it’s just a $12 lamp. Walmart makes billions.”
I bet Jerry Jones would pick up that $50 bill. It may not mean as much to him as it would to, say, me, but I bet he’d pick it up anyway. And I’d also bet he attained his wealth by not ignoring the “small” stuff; that he built his wealth on many $50 bills picked up along the way and preventing as many of those $50 bills as possible from leaving his possession.
And mind you, I’m not saying the reason for the net isn’t the worry of fan violence. It may be; for truly, like you, I don’t really know. But to suggest there is no economic incentive for the net because the NFL makes too much money to care is ridiculous, IMHO.
[QUOTE=dalej42]
I’m in the camp with the NFL not wanting to have a drunken fan incident.
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I’d like to see some kind of index detailing the incidence of fan violence (MLB overall and pre-net NFL) clearly attributable to fans fighting for possession of a game ball. I’ve watch many MLB games (TV and live) and have a very difficult time believing that drunken violence is so pervasive it drives NFL policy.
Thinking about that fan in Soldier Field who fell to the ground diving for a kicked ball some years ago (not sure if he died), I can see safety as the primary reason for the net, but I’d rank the fear of violence very low, based on my observation of MLB.