“Hey daddy, can we be able to get tickets for the big game this weekend?”
“Sorry Johnny, no.”
“Why?”
“Because we are 49ers fans and they are restricting tickets on out of town 49er fans.”
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This is a conversation that no one ever wants to have: your favorite sports team is one game away from a league championship and you cannot get tickets simply because you are an out of town fan.
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Recently, the website Ticketmaster had posted a message that tickets for Sunday’s NFC Championship Game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams were restricted only to fans that live strictly in the Los Angeles area.
This caught my attention because the message that Ticketmaster was trying to get across was a message that did not promote diversity, equality and inclusion in any way. We all want to enjoy a football game (those of us who enjoy actually being there, of course) but to say that we cannot come simply because we are from out of town is sending a message that DEI is not important.
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Diversity, Equality and Inclusion is included not just in the workplace or on the sports field, but also in the stands as well for those who want to be a part of the action. What bothers me as someone who is neurodiverse is that what if I wanted to attend the game from out of town but I couldn’t because they are trying to create a home field advantage for the team hosting the game.
I would certainly most feel excluded and bitter at this decision.
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In a way, this kind of reminds me of the book “The Sneetches” by Dr. Seuss which is all about Diversity, Equality and Inclusion simply because of the stars that are on the bellies of the Sneetches. In a way, what is going on kind of reminds me of “The Sneetches” in the sense that the star bellied sneetches are the Rams fan and the non-starred sneetches are the 49ers fans.
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I mean, put yourself in the position of someone who works for public relations for the Los Angeles Rams or any other sports team. Would you be willing to go over your superiors in order to have anyone who is a fan of either team attend perhaps the biggest game of the year?
If I was in the shoes of someone from the Los Angeles Rams public relations division, I would most certainly do so because I need to send a message that Diversity, Equality and Inclusion is accepted for fans as well and I don’t care if it would cost me my job with the organization.
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Now, before I end this blog, I’ve lived through the Tom Brady era in New England and the Patriots never excluded tickets from any out of town fans to create a home field advantage for the home team because doing so would spread a bad message to not just the fans, but within the organization itself. It’s like sepsis, if you will.
It becomes a civil war with the community you are trying to serve and one thing that destroys both a person and an organization is if both are attacking itself for something that spreads a bad message. If there is more out of town fans than home fans, then so be it. It wouldn’t bother me at all!!
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Catch you all later!!
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