In an era where arrests are constantly made at sporting events for stuff like fighting and intoxication, innocent fan noise should be the least of anyone’s concerns. The idea of a home field advantage is to make as much noise as possible, and the Seattle Seahawks have probably the best home field advantage in sports. At least two San Francisco 49ers fans think it has to stop.
On Wednesday, a Reddit user shared a letter to the editor from the San Francisco Chronicle that had to have been a perfectly-executed joke. There can’t actually be someone out there who thinks a visiting team should be able to stop a game when the crowd noise becomes too much, right?
Was anyone else appalled by the unsportsmanlike conduct of the Seattle Seahawks and their fans, juiced on noise, which surely creates as big an advantage over an opponent as any performance enhancing drug and which, to their shame, NFL officials turn the same blind eye they have to concussions and drugs?
It would be simple to fix. Seahawks players and managers would ask their fans to cease and desist, and the NFL would implement a new rule: The visiting team may stop the game when fan noise is greater than a specified decibel level, and should this rule be violated in more than three games, no home games will be played at the offending field for the rest of the season, including playoff games. Things would quiet down.
At a time when the world seems sour, sports give us a place of joy, community and hope, and to have it spoiled is a bigger loss than it seems on the surface.
Believe it or not, someone actually agreed with this person. Another fan wrote a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle the next day entitled “Game, less noise.”
I couldn’t agree more with “Unsportsmanlike conduct in Seattle” (Letters, Sept. 17).
It wasn’t a game of skill anymore; it was an exhibition of excessive stadium noise, posturing obscenities in your opponent’s face to draw a foul and street-punk behavior to fire up tensions to gain any advantage to get the win.
I hope the NFL will listen before the fans go deaf. Please stop the excessive stadium noise, and just play football.
Obscenities are one thing. Noise is another. “Please stop the noise because fans are going to go deaf” isn’t a reason for the NFL to intervene. In fact, it’s everything that’s right about cheering for your team and wanting to win. The day Seahawks fans start throwing explosives onto the field or chucking tennis balls at players like some soccer fans do is the day the NFL will intervene. Until then, don’t expect them to be told to quiet down.
H/T Deadspin
