Let’s see if we got this straight. The NFL just made a big stink about the Terrell Owens-Nicolette Sheridan skit. The NBA is dealing with the Ron Artest suspension- Artest rushing into the stands to turn a fan’s head into a basketball. Now the NFL wants to expose itself to the same liabilities by placing premium seats on the field. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
New York- The NFL this weekend will begin testing a four-game plan allowing a limited number of premium seats on the field, the Daily News has learned, and will not back off conducting the study despite Friday’s NBA riot at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
It is the football equivalent of basketball’s courtside seats and another potential lucrative revenue source that can put even more money in the pockets of the owners. One of the games will be when the Giants play the Redskins in Washington on Dec. 5.
But it also raises security concerns. The league clearly would have to screen who would sit in the seats that would be so close to the players. Then again, it would take an awfully courageous fan to get into an altercation with football players in full gear.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said yesterday the league has not had second thoughts about the premium seat feasibility study following the worst fan-player altercation ever in this country. “Security is one of the issues that will be evaluated,” Aiello said.
For now, only four fans will be picked for the field seats at four different games. They will be seated together in lounge chairs 36 feet from the sidelines and not in the bench area. A possible location is the corner of the end zone. The clubs will pick the four fans and they will not be charged for the experimental games.
The NFL will use four games to evaluate security, sight lines and such logistical issues as access to restrooms and concession areas. If the NFL decides to allow teams to sell field seats next season, it has yet to be determined how many fans per game would be allowed to buy the premium seats. It obviously would be more than four. And the pricing issue has not been decided.
The four experimental games: Jacksonville at Minnesota on Sunday; the Giants-Redskins game; Houston at Chicago, Dec. 19; New England at Miami, Dec. 20. One source said the Patriots had experimented with field seating during the 2003 season.
In August, the league sent a memo to the 32 teams looking for a limited number of volunteers to install field seats to test the “operational feasibility.”
It is anticipated that aggressive marketing teams, such as the Patriots and Redskins, would be among the first to sign up for the program if the league adopts it next year.
“I would like to see what the results of the experiment are before we made any decision as to whether we would do it,” Giants vice president John Mara said. “Offhand, it’s not something that I’d be interested in doing in the near-term, but you never say never.”
Fans sitting behind team benches have been known to be verbally abusive to players. There was an incident in Chicago on Sunday when a heckling fan and Bears players got into a shouting match and the fan was ejected from the stadium.
Is there a security concern with fans on the field?
“I think you could deal with it if there was a limited number of seats and if you had security on the field near the seats,” Mara said.