Why The Bengals Won't Have a Good 12th Man

[Touchdown 2006]

The Bengals idea with the Jerk Line is a great idea. Every stadium in America should do it. Sports are as much about entertainment as they are about games these days.
The team's success depends on fans enjoying their experience at the stadium enough to bring their money back a second time. For every drunk fan who has fun, there are about 15 sober fans who don't. Alcohol is wonderful if you're pathetic enough to rely on it as a means for a good time. But anyone who has to get drunk to enjoy something as exciting as an NFL game isn't worth it.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Touchdown 2006

The Bengals idea with the Jerk Line is a great idea. Every stadium in America should do it. Sports are as much about entertainment as they are about games these days.
The team's success depends on fans enjoying their experience at the stadium enough to bring their money back a second time. For every drunk fan who has fun, there are about 15 sober fans who don't. Alcohol is wonderful if you're pathetic enough to rely on it as a means for a good time. But anyone who has to get drunk to enjoy something as exciting as an NFL game isn't worth it.

That's not even close to true. All NFL teams get more than enough shared revenue to cover the costs of maximizing their salary cap allottment each year. The success of football teams are not at all dependent upon fan attendance. Even if you're the Cardinals who have experienced the lowest attendance in the league, they still have more than enough revenue to cover $106 million in player salaries.

And it's very myopic to think that people will actually stay home from the stadium because they're afraid of the jerks who yell S and F. That doesn't happen.

[724Skinsfan]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

And it's very myopic to think that people will actually stay home from the stadium because they're afraid of the jerks who yell S and F. That doesn't happen.

Not entirely true Schneed, I doubt that I will take my son when he is old enough to a game unless I know that the seats are in a "good" section. I get tickets from a friend 2 or 3 times a year and the people around are all decent people. We cheer and high five but no one gets out of hand with. There are other places that I've sat at in the stadium that I was flat out embarrassed to be in. I'm not going to subject my kid(s) to vulgarity if I can help it and probably will leave early.

You can be supportively loud and not scream obscenities, especially when kids or elderly people are around.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by 724Skinsfan

Not entirely true Schneed, I doubt that I will take my son when he is old enough to a game unless I know that the seats are in a "good" section. I get tickets from a friend 2 or 3 times a year and the people around are all decent people. We cheer and high five but no one gets out of hand with. There are other places that I've sat at in the stadium that I was flat out embarrassed to be in. I'm not going to subject my kid(s) to vulgarity if I can help it and probably will leave early.

You can be supportively loud and not scream obscenities, especially when kids or elderly people are around.

You're right. But I should clarify my statement. There are people who will indeed choose to stay home from the game because of exposure to this kind of thing. But for every person who is ready to do that, there are two others without tickets who are dying to take that seat. Redskin games always sell out, there is plenty of demand for tickets. So if a portion of fans opt to stay home due to increasingly boorish behavior at games, I'd expect other fans to fill in the gaps.

How this pertains to the Bengals, I don't know much about their attendance. Demand for their tickets may not be the same as Washington's. So if they stand to lose attendance due to increasingly boorish behavior, then I can understand management's move here in creating the hotline. They want to keep their existing fan base because they might believe that there aren't that many people lined up to get tickets. In that case it would be an understandable move, though at the same time somewhat deleterious to home-field advantage.