Football, America’s favorite pastime, is not only a display of athletic prowess on the field, but also an opportunity for fans to showcase their passion, loyalty and sometimes outrageous behavior in the stands. Unfortunately as of lately there has been a lot of unnecessary violence within fans of certain football teams.
As we dive into the 2023 football season, the realm of football fandom continues to evolve, with fans pushing boundaries and taking their support to unnecessary levels of outrageousness.
Dale Mooney, a 53-year-old New Hampshire resident, fell unconscious after being severely beaten by a Miami Dolphins fan during the fourth quarter of New England’s “Sunday Night Football” game against the Miami Dolphins on September 17th, 2023. Just moments later, Mooney was then pronounced dead.
The tragedy took place in the upper deck of Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
“It shouldn’t sit well with the Dolphins’ fan base,” said Patriots fan, Kaleb Moore. “It looks bad on them. It’s just crazy. Like that’s just not right.”
The investigation into the tragic incident is still underway. Many have expressed their disappointment by reaching out to both Patriots and Dolphins organizations, and even NFL officials.
There seems to be no difference when taking a glance at the fans of college football. The world was set ablaze September 16th 2023, just a day before the Patriots’ fan tragedy, when Colorado State safety Henry Blackburn made a late hit on Colorado receiver Travis Hunter.
Hunter played a few snaps afterwards, but he was later sent to the hospital and missed the rest of the game.
Unfortunately, this has led to Blackburn and his family receiving death threats, hate messages and unknown phone calls.
“It’s not a great thing to happen,” Moore said. “He’s just playing the game that he loves and he’s just trying to do what most kids want to do, which is live out their dream.”.
Fans across the country believe that the social media influences these acts as it shows a digital footprint on these violent acts from these fans. They believe it influences them by seeing it on social media apps such as X, formerly known as Twitter), or Instagram and think that it is acceptable.
“For sure I think that’s how it all starts,” said Senior Drew Heitner. “Like on Twitter, people just talk crazy, and I think that they’re translating that to real life.”
Fans around the leagues feel as if they should add some time of punishment for these outrageous acts of violence. The fans believe that these professional teams and college schools should take action and make sure fans that act outrageous should not be permitted to watch any games and do better to try and prevent situations like these.
“They could revoke memberships or stop them from ever entering the stadium ever again,” Said Senior Dillion Banks.
