from Amazon
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Disincentive to fan riots
Tyler proposes:
One solution might be punishing teams in cities that have problems with a points deduction the following season. English football does something similar for teams that go into administration during the course of the season. UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, holds teams accountable for the conduct of their fans – Serbia was recently punished for out of control fans within a stadium. I’m not aware, off the top of my head, of teams being punished for the conduct of supporters outside of the stadium but if the conduct is related to the game – and Stanley Cup riots obviously are – I’m not sure why you wouldn’t hold the people profiting responsible for them.
Tyler is wrong here because the team can only police on the property it actually controls. That the fans riot outside the arena/stadium now absolves the team. Otherwise, if you make them responsible, you are now saying that they “own” the policing of the fans on public streets.
I like the idea that you can punish a team for the actions of its fans within its building (and baseball has had its forfeits like the Disco Game). But, you can’t go beyond that.