San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders Violence: Send Them to Court

Having personally spent many years watching Philadelphia Eagles football at Veterans Stadium— which presented a formidable challenge for visiting teams and fans alike—it felt like déjà vu last Saturday night. Have San Francisco and Oakland football fans taken over where Philly fans left off?

In the late fall of 1997 Judge Seamus McCaffery set up a make-shift court in the basement of Philly’s Veterans Stadium, solely for the purpose of dealing with rowdy fans. Ironically this court, known as the Eagles Court, came into existence after a raucous game the Eagles played against San Francisco. During that game NY Times reported that approximately 60 fights broke out, a season-ticket holder suffered a broken ankle after trying to save a friend, and among other things, a flare gun was fired into an empty section of the stadium.

Judge McCaffery delivered a powerful message when he stripped offenders of their season tickets, gave them stiff fines, and made them remain in the court lock-up until the game was over.

Compare this to the violence that occurred during and after the San Francisco preseason game last Saturday night (August 20, 2011) against the Oakland Raiders; a 26-year-old man was beaten unconscious in a bathroom of the stadium and hospitalized, and two men in their twenties were shot within twenty minutes of each other in separate parking lot locations of Candlestick Park, according to Fox News.

Violence of this nature cannot be tolerated.

It has been well documented that the animosity between Oakland and 49er fans is legendary. Rather than waiting for another bloody event to occur it is incumbent upon all home teams to take serious and proactive steps to ensure the safety of the fans attending a home game. The Eagles took strong and immediate action by penalizing out of control fans and incarcerating them during a game.

Each NFL team should assess the threat posed to innocent fans and come up with a strategy that eliminates the possibility of physical harm to innocent bystanders before, during and after an NFL football game.

Maybe this time the football court needs to hire a judge that decides to throw away the key.

Susan Tose Spencer is an award-winning author, entrepreneur, successful business owner and is the only female GM in the history of the NFL. She currently owns a meat trading company, hosts a radio show (Business Buzz) on Women’s Radio, is a guest lecturer at UNLV’s School of Entrepreneurship and is a blogger (www.briefcaseessentials.com/blog).