Will the real fans please sit down?
Inside every stadium and arena, a millennia-old debate still rages
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Jacob leads off this week…
Stand up (Yes, you).
Ok, sit down.
Stand up again.
If you followed instructions, you just participated in the sports spectating ritual that has been passed down from generation to generation during each slam dunk, defensive third down, and bottom-of-the-ninth at-bat.
Oh shoot. You can sit back down now. Apologies!
But I fear the tradition is in danger.
When to rise is fandom’s great inherited custom. And it’s usually pretty easy to follow. Lumen Field’s policies actually spell it out in Seattle: “majority rules.” if the people around you are up, you should be too. Otherwise, don’t block the view.
It’s a tough time for norms, though, if you haven’t heard. Road rage is on the rise. Cinema etiquette is hotly debated. I could easily see stadium standards falling next.
In fact, debates over how to observe sporting events have popped up at various times over the last three millennia, as have attempts to enforce the rules.
In the 2nd century BCE, 300 years before the Colosseum opened, the Roman Senate passed a law requiring Gladiatorial observers to remain on their feet during the fights, essentially out of paranoia that the spectators were going soft. (It’s not hard to imagine some Big 10 alumni having the same fear today.)
About 2100 years later, British officials had the opposite problem. In 1989, a crush of fans swelling inside Hillsborough Stadium’s standing-room only section led to 97 deaths.
In response, top flight venues were forced to go to “all-seater” setups. Only in 2022 did the Premier League begin to reintroduce (slightly Orwellian) “safe standing” areas.
The balancing act actually represents a crucial paradox at the heart of what makes sports special.
We go to participate in a mass ritual, but also to be entertained. We seek out the community of the crowd, but we also paid a pretty penny for our seat and don’t want our view blocked by that drunk lunk in Row F.
For now, the solution appears to be separation. In Steve Ballmer’s new $2B Intuit Dome, a standing-only ‘Wall’ portion greets visiting players, but the team is quick to point out that the rest of the bowl features “comfortable seating equipped with phone charging capabilities and the most legroom in the NBA.” Many American soccer stadiums now lock the chairs in a folded position for their supporter sections.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Elsewhere, ushers enforce a sitting policy (even for costumed crazies), under the threat of ejection for disturbing other fans. And in some cases, teams are even adding premium clubs and in-venue tailgating areas that further distract from the action.
Maybe the split is for the best. Everyone can have the exact experience they want, whether they’re with family, they’re physically limited, or they want to get drunk and hoarse and sweaty, shoulder-to-shoulder with a thousand other people entering with similar intent.
But siloing the crazies comes with a cost. It can suck the air out of the calmer sections, letting them become even more tightly policed and predictable. At some point, you’re just recreating your living room.
200 years after Rome put in its first standing requirements, Augustus, the first Roman emperor, added more rules. Responding to social upheaval, he completely stratified the audiences. Senators could sit in the front. Others had to stand in their assigned row based on social status. The army was removed from civilian sections. Women were given their own place.
And we all know how that whole story ended.
TL;DR 🏟️: They’re not called grandsits.
Now turning it over to Eben for his Pick Six, featuring a record contract, a notable hire, a soft politician, and more for our favorite people, Club Sportico’s paid members…
The Sportico Story of the Week ⚾: I loved Kurt Badenhausen’s by-the-numbers look at Juan Soto’s $765 million contract. It’s full of gems that contextualize the eye-popping sum in smart ways, like where it sits across the largest per-year deals in U.S. leagues. The answer might surprise you 👇
The Non-Sportico Story of the Week 🏈: While seemingly everyone had opinions about why Bill Belichick wants the UNC job, credit to ESPN’s Seth Wickersham for actually reporting it out. “This is a big fuck you to the NFL,” one Belichick confidant told Wickersham, whose story shows this is about power as much as anything else.
What Made me Laugh 🤡: LOL. C’mon dude.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Club Sportico to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.