Media & Entertainment Law

"Friendly" Confines = Confines with a Civility Code?

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

Yet another fan speech controversy is brewing, this one in the left-field bleachers at Wrigley Field. Cub fans have been booing Alfonso Soriano for his poor defense, which prompted Cub officials to warn fans that "any profane or inappropriate comments" toward Soriano would result in immediate rejection. (H/T: Adam Wasch, Sports Law Blog reader and president of the FIU Sports and Entertainment Law Society).

Nothing actionable here because Wrigley remains privately owned (although a move is afoot to try to get the State of Illinois to buy it, partly to keep new and despised Cubs owner Sam Zell from selling naming rights). But this example captures problems inherent in all the attempts to regulate fan speech. This is ground I have covered before, but it bears repeating.

First, "inappropriate" is vague to the point of meaningless as a standard. Inappropriate in whose eyse? The usher's? Soriano's? Some might argue that booing the home team always is inappropriate.

Second, profanity is the coin of the realm in the bleachers at Wrigley Field. The left-field bleachers were my area of choice in my Chicago days (because, after all, Right Field Sucks). And, in fact, the Cubs have gone out of their way to promote and market this image of the Bleacher Bums and their interactions with the players, fully recognizing that profanity and pointed criticism (clever or otherwise) always have been part of that. Yet now, when the fans' ire and "wit" have turned on their own, sensitivity and civility suddenly is at a premium. And again, note that it was "profane or inappropriate" comments. This was not just about stopping profanity.

Do you really want to stop fans from criticizing and jeering the home players? Do not bother trying to stop fans from speaking out. Instead, engage in a little counter-speech, Lee Elia-style.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on May 30, 2008 (boomark / email).