Sports Law • Risk Management

security

An Overview of Drone Use for Sports Facilities

Drone use at sporting events has made international news in the last month when a drone piloted by a New York City high school science teacher crashed during a women’s singles match at the U.S. Open Tennis Championship. Days later, a drone crashed at the stadium shortly before a Kentucky football game. There were no injuries as a result of those two incidents. However, in a triathlon filmed in Australia, an athlete was injured by a drone within meters of the finish line.

Boston Bombings: Sporting Event Risk Management Lesson

Investigators are pursuing leads that nylon bags placed in grocery bags may have held the bombs that caused the destruction, bodily injury and deaths near the finish line at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. This provides a reminder to anyone that attends or participates in a sporting event to be on the lookout for unattended boxes, bags or other containers that may or may not appear to be suspicious. Let us take a lesson from airport security.

G4S Security Shortfall at London 2012

Many of the security concerns and issues at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London were allegedly caused by G4S Security Company. Richard Allen Greene of CNN reported that the private security firm G4S signed a $444 million dollar government contract to provide 10,400 security personnel for the Olympics. However just weeks before the games G4S came out and admitted they only had 4,000 trained security personnel, and could only have 7,000 ready by opening day of the Olympics. With G4S’s shortfall being a huge issue the government deployed 4,200 extra troops and extra police.

Super Bowl Organizers Ramp Up Security

“From the minute they get on a plane, visitors to Indianapolis should expect to be watched, sniffed and pawed as security around the Super Bowl XLVI host city tightens. Air marshals will be on flights, and bloodhounds will roam the airport. Cameras line the streets, and helicopters hover in the sky. Cops at every corner; security at every stop,” according to John Tuohy of Indystar.com.

Soccer Riot in Eqypt---A Call for Stadium Security

The riot that erupted at a soccer game in Port Said, Eqypt left 74 dead and at least 248 wounded when 13,000 Al Mary fans armed with knives, sticks and stones stormed the field, chasing players and fans of the other team, Al-Ahly, who tried to escape by running towards exits and up the stands.

Baseball Fan Falls to His Death

It is fairly routine that baseball players will flip balls into the waiting hands of spectators in the stands, but it is unusual that such a routine act would be the catalyst in a tragedy. Texas Rangers center fielder, Josh Hamilton, performed such a routine act by tossing a dead ball towards some fans, but the ball fell short of penetrating the stands. Shannon Stone, a spectator at the game, reached over the railing for the ball, lost his balance and fell head first twenty feet to the ground.