With six-figure fines being laughed off, the SEC is preparing to up the ante on penalties for storming the field or court. May take away home games.

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Have there been any real things related to safety? I have not seen anything reported. Seems like an odd thing for the conference bigshots to be focused on...
 

PMWinSTP said:
Have there been any real things related to safety? I have not seen anything reported. Seems like an odd thing for the conference bigshots to be focused on...
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There have been instances of players pushing fans and there inevitably is the person who jumps the rail and breaks an ankle. The last thing these schools want Is someone to go down and get trampled, so I can see why they want it done away with.
 

PMWinSTP said:
Have there been any real things related to safety? I have not seen anything reported. Seems like an odd thing for the conference bigshots to be focused on...
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Well you know in the SEC it just means more.
 


upnorthkid said:
There have been instances of players pushing fans and there inevitably is the person who jumps the rail and breaks an ankle. The last thing these schools want Is someone to go down and get trampled, so I can see why they want it done away with.
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Do they really care?

The school is liable not the SEC so why is the SEC acting?

We already had an Alabama player punch a fan and … no consequences.

The whole situation is strange.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Do they really care?

The school is liable not the SEC so why is the SEC acting?

We already had an Alabama player punch a fan and … no consequences.

The whole situation is strange.
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The school isnt liable for a fan jumping on to the field and getting injured.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
The school isnt liable for a fan jumping on to the field and getting injured.
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I wouldn't be so sure. If the fan can show that the school, etc. were negligent by not providing enough security to prevent fans from storming the field and due to the number of fans going down onto the field the injured party had no choice but to enter the field causing her/his injury, the school, etc. could be found liable. It is not a big leap to get a school, conference, security, etc. on the hook.
 










UpAndUnder43 said:
For who? The schools lawyers that are on retainer? It costs them nothing. Just effort really.
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The school's lawyers are not litigators, they are not on retainer, they are salaried employees. That said, litigation drives up the total spend for any organization. Walmart has a robust legal team and constantly getting sued impacts them. In fact, the number 1 goal of most in-house attorneys (like the school's lawyers) is to find ways to avoid litigation.

Lastly, retainers don't pay for an entire legal build, they pay to make sure you're available when you're needed. It's like a down payment.
 

The Court/Field storming thing is getting a little out of control with how often it is happening. I'm all for people having fun but fans don't belong on the field. That said, if it is going to happen it would be great to make sure the opposing team has time to clear the area before the fans come out there.

Will be interesting to see if the SEC goes forward with this plan of taking away a future home game if there is a field/court storming.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
The school's lawyers are not litigators, they are not on retainer, they are salaried employees. That said, litigation drives up the total spend for any organization. Walmart has a robust legal team and constantly getting sued impacts them. In fact, the number 1 goal of most in-house attorneys (like the school's lawyers) is to find ways to avoid litigation.

Lastly, retainers don't pay for an entire legal build, they pay to make sure you're available when you're needed. It's like a down payment.
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Fair points. I also don’t know of many (any?) instances where a fan on the court or field getting injured successfully won a case.
 

MNVCGUY said:
The Court/Field storming thing is getting a little out of control with how often it is happening. I'm all for people having fun but fans don't belong on the field. That said, if it is going to happen it would be great to make sure the opposing team has time to clear the area before the fans come out there.

Will be interesting to see if the SEC goes forward with this plan of taking away a future home game if there is a field/court storming.
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Is it happening more often?
 


I like it. Everyone should be punished when a few people make a bad decision. Get with the times, guys. In fact, I think any fan who is caught storming the field/court should have their entire bloodline banned for three generations.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Fair points. I also don’t know of many (any?) instances where a fan on the court or field getting injured successfully won a case.
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In addition to the points Bob made above, the schools often also have the problem that they are not only failing to prevent the behavior, but are actively encouraging field storming. Imagine somebody getting hurt while storming the field at the Bank after we beat Michigan this season. If the U's defense is "hey, we have security, but we can't be responsible for the conduct of the scofflaws," I'd expect the immediate response to be links to all the videos they have posted celebrating the on-field celebrations after the Penn State (2019) and wisconsin (2021) games. They are not discouraging the behavior, they are glorifying it. (And that's not wrong, it just makes trying to avoid a legal claim pretty difficult.)
 

I stormed the field after the 2019 Penn State game. My son was with me and we decided before the game that when we won, we'd storm the field. In retrospect it wasn't actually all that much fun (took a while to get down there and then once we were down there it was just like "ok now we are here, what do we do?"). I guess if you're one of the first ones on the field and in with the players maybe that would be cool. I'm still glad we did as it is a pretty cool father-son memory.

It's sad they feel like they need to ban it. It should be a fun/harmless thing to do to celebrate a win.

I had a blast watching everyone storm the field after beating bucky in 2021. Also just watched some videos of fans storming the field after the Wrexham soccer team clinched promotion. Looked like a lot of harmless fun.
 
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2nd Degree Gopher said:
In addition to the points Bob made above, the schools often also have the problem that they are not only failing to prevent the behavior, but are actively encouraging field storming. Imagine somebody getting hurt while storming the field at the Bank after we beat Michigan this season. If the U's defense is "hey, we have security, but we can't be responsible for the conduct of the scofflaws," I'd expect the immediate response to be links to all the videos they have posted celebrating the on-field celebrations after the Penn State (2019) and wisconsin (2021) games. They are not discouraging the behavior, they are glorifying it. (And that's not wrong, it just makes trying to avoid a legal claim pretty difficult.)
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I think the U's postion would be more:

"We can't control most of 50,000+ people if they want to do things, so we put out the stairs to help folks get in and out safely and tell them not to jump."

That actually seems entirely reasonable. The U is trying to manage the reality rather than pretend it won't happen.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I think the U's postion would be more:

"We can't control most of 50,000+ people if they want to do things, so we put out the stairs to help folks get in and out safely and tell them not to jump."

That actually seems entirely reasonable. The U is trying to manage the reality rather than pretend it won't happen.
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Putting out the stairs is welcoming people on the field, which is the behavior the fines are intending to prevent. Using the videos of people partying on the field as promotion to get people to come to the games and get excited about the product is great marketing, it's fun. But it makes for a lousy legal defense to say: "We know we have inadequate security, so we try to make it easier and safer for people to break the rules."

The reason that you don't hear about very many lawsuits stemming from field and court rushes isn't because people don't make claims, it's because the claims get settled.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
Putting out the stairs is welcoming people on the field, which is the behavior the fines are intending to prevent. Using the videos of people partying on the field as promotion to get people to come to the games and get excited about the product is great marketing, it's fun. But it makes for a lousy legal defense to say: "We know we have inadequate security, so we try to make it easier and safer for people to break the rules."

The reason that you don't hear about very many lawsuits stemming from field and court rushes isn't because people don't make claims, it's because the claims get settled.
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It's not inadequate ... it's reality.

What do you imagine the case is like here?

Some old geezer jumps and hurts himself and then sues because there were videos on YouTube?

I think the U's position would be sufficient.

What do you imagine "adaquate security" is here? Some folks pressing back on the crowd to keep them in their seats? contained in the end zone? THAT would be a poor choice / liability nightmare.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
It's not inadequate ... it's reality.

What do you imagine the case is like here?

Some old geezer jumps and hurts himself and then sues because there were videos on YouTube?

I think the U's position would be sufficient.

What do you imagine "adaquate security" is here? Some folks pressing back on the crowd to keep them in their seats? contained in the end zone? THAT would be a poor choice / liability nightmare.
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Curious how many cops will be on the field for the SEC games to detain people and identify them so they can levy their fines.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
The school isnt liable for a fan jumping on to the field and getting injured.
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Correct. This all sounds like a solution looking for a problem. Seems like the U had no problem with it...jump around!
A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Is it happening more often?
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I had the same thought...doesn't seem to be to me and the ones happening are when something unexpectedly big has happened.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
It's not inadequate ... it's reality.

What do you imagine the case is like here?

Some old geezer jumps and hurts himself and then sues because there were videos on YouTube?

I think the U's position would be sufficient.

What do you imagine "adaquate security" is here? Some folks pressing back on the crowd to keep them in their seats? contained in the end zone? THAT would be a poor choice / liability nightmare.
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If the goal was to keep people off the field (it's usually not), the security and warnings are inadequate for that purpose. I'm not "imagining" anything, I have seen these types of claims all over the country. Sometimes, yes, it is somebody who jumps a barricade and gets hurt on the landing. Other times, it's someone who gets knocked over by the crowd and trampled, trips over cables on the ground or gets assaulted by a security guard, athlete or university employee. All different circumstances that share one common theme--the schools don't want them publicized and don't want to take them to court. Could they win some of these cases by arguing negligence on the part of the injured party, assumption of the risk, etc.? Definitely, but you seem to be ignoring the risks to the institutions.

I am happy that you are satisfied, in my hypothetical, the U would be delighted to have you on their jury, except the case isn't likely to ever get to court because they know their exposure and the bad PR that would come from litigating the claims.
 

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