Monday, November 22, 2004

Last Friday, driving home from a very late night at work, I heard about the fight between the fans and the Pacers. Yesterday, the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, issued his suspensions.

Now, I realize suspensions in this case are needed, to prevent players from pulling this stunt again. However, I feel the sentence on Ron Artest, though he is a certifiable looney, is too much. Half the season would have been fine, considering it was the fans that provoked him into action.

But what sanctions are there going to be against the fans? I'll tell you: none. That's right, the NBA will do, in all honesty, nothing. And this will cause the fans to get even more belligerent. This was not the only incident involving 'fans' in the past week or so: an Oklahoma Sooners 'RedNeck' was bumped into by a Nebraska Cornhusker player during warmups, and is now suing the player for assault. Also, during that game, we had the traditional orange throwing by the Sooner fans. Last time that occurred, an official was beaned and was in the hospital for quite a while with a concussion.

What happened to the fans? Nothing.

Here is what I would do: For the NBA - take 5 games, one for each division opponent to the Pistons (whose fans caused the fight), and turn those 5 games from home games to away games for the Pistons...and do not allow any refunds or discounts to the season ticket holders.

For Oklahoma - Change one conference home game next year to an away game.

In both cases, the fans will actually be punished, and will be put on notice that if you act up, you could well cost your chance to see further games. Both the Pistons and the Sooners would lose revenue from those games, which acts as a defacto fine to those organizations for not keeping control

And for Ron Artest? If I were him, and the suspension is upheld, I would sue the NBA for providing an unsafe working environment. That's exactly what happened, and the NBA is at fault for not having sufficient security available to handle the situation.