Section Profiling

By: Tom | April 19th, 2007

Well, it looks like today is controversy day for Fire fans. The latest one involves those hardest of hardcore Fire fans, the Section 8 folks.

Let’s imagine you run a soccer team in a city teeming with more popular sports teams in a country where supporting a soccer team does not come naturally to most people. Now imagine that thanks to the true fans of that team, and the people that used to run that team before you bought it, your team happens to have the most vibrant fanbase in your soccer league. They give life to the stadium – let’s call them Section 8. Being savvy business people, you realise it would be a good idea to work with Section 8, and so you build relations with the folks putting a ton of time and effort into winning more support for your team.

Some of those supporters, though by no means a majority, smuggle in some booze and some smokebombs to games (see video below). This scares the beeheegees out of some nearby soccer moms (or some such) and they complain to you. What to do? Do you (a) continue to work quietly behind the scenes with the loyal supporter’s groups to eliminate these problems; (b) shrug because if soccer is ever to take hold in the United States, it has to accept some of the rough with the smooth when it comes to generating atmosphere at soccer games; (c) mass email and voicemail Section 8 season ticketholders and tell them they, and only those entering their section, will be subject to a special security patdown at the upcoming game – and thus risk annoying your biggest supporters.

OK, enough of the hypotheticals. The Fire front office this week chose option (c). Many Section 8 fans, judging from their messageboard, object to this profiling. A few Section 8 fans have responded by blaming themselves (as a group) – supporters letting off smokebombs and smuggling in alcohol in Section 8 are clearly not obeying the rules, and it happens much more there than elsewhere. In that case, who can blame the Fire front office for targeting the fans that sit there?

Unfortunately, even if we accepted it is OK to target Section 8 like this, it is actually a rather poor policing policy. Firstly, anyone could buy a ticket for another section and sneak in anything. Secondly, the most effective policing of a community is to win people’s support in weeding out the real troublemakers – but this announcement has pissed off many Section 8 fans.

It is true this is a tricky issue for the Fire; they are apparently under pressure in Bridgeview, where the stadium is located, to sterilise the atmosphere at games. Yet the single biggest turn-off to MLS games is the haunted house atmosphere at many of the games around the league. Soccer needs a rabid fanbase to create excitement at games. Something like…Section 8. The Fire front office surely realises this, so hopefully, supporter’s group leaders will work with them to find an amicable resolution.