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Comment by jld | Hacker News Reader

Major League Soccer is going through this problem now. They prohibit political displays in stadium but are now in the business of deciding whether signs that say things like "anti-racist" or "anti-fascist" or "end gun violence" are political or not, and all of the worms that come out of that can.

https://deadspin.com/by-banning-protest-signs-mls-is-trying-...

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I wouldn't have a problem with expanding that to include social issues. You bought a ticket to see a game, not a billboard.

This is a problem I have with modern social movements, when they fail to get audiences in public spaces they seek out captive audiences or to be disruptive as possible to completely unrelated places. Hold your rally in a park or march down main street or a pedestrian way or in front of some place you're protesting. Stop walking down highways and forcing your messages in places which have nothing to do with your cause.

"Please do not bother me with you trying to not get killed by the state anymore."

Like a moth to a flame.

“I’m here for bread and circuses and I’d appreciate it if you kept your uncomfortable reality away from me so I don’t have to confront or think about it”

“Look I know your the victim of systematic racism and oppression that’s led you to march, but goddamnit I’m trying to get to Burger King!!”

What is functionally different between "marching down main street" and "walking down highways"? Many places basically have highways as psuedo main streets.

It doesn't really seem like MLK's Selma to Montgomery march or Ghandi's Salt March would've passed this smell test.

So you are saying they should protest were you can easily ignore them?

> You bought a ticket to see a game, not a billboard.

Absolutely. So let's get rid of advertising at games. Not just political advertising; all advertising. No Democratic or Republican ads, but also no Toyota or Chrysler ads, no Coors or Bud Light ads. Unfortunately, there's too much money at stake for that to ever happen.

But political ads are different. I don't think Coors drinkers get offended when they see a Bud Light ad.

No, but see Budweiser did buy that ad space. You bought a ticket to see a game.

Political campaigns also buy ad space with money. It's not as if there's some discount political rate.

People often choose advertised cheaper products over unadvertised more expensive. You’re going against that pattern

Sure, ticket prices go up accordingly and demand for their sales drops off consequentially.

MLS teams are walking billboards. Ads subsidize the world, especially live sports events. Enjoy your 2000% base ticket price increases.

Are the base ticket prices based on cost, or on supply and demand?

Does it matter? The point isn't that tickets will become unaffordable, the point is that the sports leagues themselves will disappear.

Sports isn't something people need. Some sports leagues cost a lot of resources to run. If these sports leagues become less profitable, then some of the investment will move into other entertainment and your sports professional league will slowly disappear.

Clearly this apocalyptic prediction begs the question of how much investment is required, since we're have a variety of shorts with different levels of spending, and raising over the past 20 years. If there were 2se less money in football, it's unlikely to disappear

I don't think this is apocalyptic. It's not that football would disappear, but professional football leagues would or they would be diminished. I don't know whether that has a significant negative impact on society.

How big of a problem would it be, if the professional sports leagues were to disappear? There are probably many opinions on the matter.

But I agree, without advertisements, professional sports would not survive, so it's not going to happen.

I don't think that the impact of less professional sports on a societal level will be very significant, but if the reason to get rid of ads at sporting events is to make them better, then it's (probably) counterproductive to take steps that kill off a large portion of those events.

What is an ad? Can the beer cans say "Coors"? Can airplanes fly by with ads trailing? Can people's clothing display brands? Can the players' shoes have the Nike swoosh? Can pop-up shops sell their goods at the store or give out samples? Can a company buy tickets just to plant attendees who will loudly wear their brands? These are all forms of marketing. If they are permissible, then how do you enforce it? No billboards over a certain size? No audio or video ads?

Wrong.

Companies that buy advertising at games pay a pretty penny for it. Fans who buy tickets to games have paid to watch the game, not to advertise their cause. If fans want to advertise at games, they can pay the advertising rate.

Yes we must respect our corporate overlords, by their good graces we sit in their stadiums. It would be disrespectful to treat this private space like a public forum in any way. Even if the stadium WAS partially built using public funds...

Sorta. I mean, corporations are not entirely apolitical. For instance, during a recent heated pipeline approval process in my region, the pipeline company was running “look at all the good we do” feel good ads all over the place. They are not directly saying “vote for so and so” but are promoting specific ideas. Like car companies promoting the idea that your car represents freedom - that’s not apolotical. Cities have been rebuilt to accommodate a lifestyle car companies promoted.

If you were a social movement that wanted to get your message across, you wouldn’t seek out a captive audience? The distuption is part of how to communicate

Because civil rights has always been most effective when the protests were out of the way in designated areas.

The difference is that it's easy to have "a private org can set its own logically inconsistent policy" (and every possible policy except "everything is allowed" is logically inconsistent) but impossible to have "we will only allow universally agreed upon good things in this space".

The latter turns into "everything is forbidden", which is also logically consistent... but not useful or practical.

The Portland Timbers literally use the Cascadia Flag. I mean, it's a joke to imagine that political messages are banned.

I think fascism is inherently political while racism is not necessarily.

I’ve been told everything is political, when questioning someone once. So I suppose Twitter will bow block all ads?

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