The Saints were party of a scandal known as Bountygate in the NFL a couple years after they won their first Superbowl. Saints fans have been crazy in the Superdome, especially after the town was wrecked by the hurricane. They are super loyal to their team, and it shows especially after what they have gone through the past couple of years. Saints coach, Sean Payton, was suspended from his team, as well as the team losing two second round draft picks after being discovered that they were placing bounties on players in the NFL. Defensive Coordinator was offering extra bonuses if the defensive players could injure certain players on the offense. “Victims” of the bounties include players such as Brett Favre, Kurt Warner, and even Cam Newton.
Most
fans were in disbelief that their team would ever do such a thing. Even if the defensive coordinator was placing
bounties, why should Sean Payton be punished?
Joe Vitt, the assistant coach, was to be suspended six games, Sean
Payton was to be suspended for two seasons, and Linebacker Jonathon Vilma was
to be suspended for a whole season.
Vilma, however, appealed the suspension in court and won his
suspension. The fans were ecstatic to
have their best defensive player on the field but still very upset about the
unfair suspensions and draft picks being taken away.
The Superbowl is to be played in the Superdome this year,
and New Orleans fans blame NFL commissioner, Rodger Goodell, for the Saints
having an “off season.” These fans are
not happy about the fact that he will probably be coming to town February
third, and some fans are taking extreme actions against him. Even though he is letting Payton come back a
year early, he still won’t have them get their second round draft pick back,
and the fans are quite unforgiving. Some
of these fans own bars, and the bars they own absolutely refuse to serve
Goodell if he decides to “stumble into one of these bars.” According to ProFootballTalk, these bars have
a picture in the back in the kitchen with pictures of Goodell, captioned “Do
not serve this man!”
I suppose to sum up what I am saying; Fans are loyal to
one team, and not the whole sport, or the commissioner of the sport. If someone messes with a team, they’re
messing with the team’s fans, and they will not forgive you for it.
I was not completely sure what bountygate was until reading this article just now. So I am still not extremely familiar with the topic, however I think it is interesting that you said "fans are loyal to one team, and not the whole sport, or the commissioner of the sport." I agree with the second part that you wrote, "if someone messes with a team, they're messing with the team's fans, and they will not forgive you for it." That part makes sense to me, true fans will definitely hold grudges when people mess with their team. However, what I was saying before, I do not agree with the part about fans being loyal or one team and not the sport. This may be true in certain situations, but in my opinion, for the most part I think that a lot of people who are loyal supporters of a team, are also big fans of the whole sport. Other than that I found your post very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThis entire thing is a mess. First of all, there is no excuse for putting bounty on opposing players even if it was a way to pump players up. Yet the Saints fans do have something to be mad about. Rodger Goodell on the other hand seemed to punish the wrong people. What else is new. The NFl has a way of punishing or over punishing players or accused. Lastly, if I was bar owner I wouldn't serve Rodger Goodell either. The Saints fans are definitly in the right here.
ReplyDeleteIf i were a Saints fan I would react the same way. A team can do almost nothing wrong in the eyes of the fan. As for Rodger Goodell I personally don't agree with a lot of the decisions he makes and even though I am not a Saints I wouldn't serve him either but I just don't like him.
ReplyDeleteFans are loyal to particular teams, but a lot of times it is the sport in the first place that attracted them to a team. Of course location and other factors come into play but, the love of the game usually generates fandom in the first place. With the bar situation, not serving one person won't affect the business so they are serving fan's interests by doing that.
ReplyDeleteThat was a cool angle you took: you mess with the team, you have to answer to their fans. And to your point about why should Payton be punished; I mean, it's definitely not right, but he is the leader of the team and has to answer for everything that goes on. So, I think, by default, he had to take the biggest hit. And I could be wrong, but I believe he was only supposed to be suspended for one year (which he served), not two. Anyway, I would classify those type of loyal fans as escaping, social sports addicts. They use sports to escape the everyday grind, so they go to bars and other social places to watch the big game.
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