At the same time the NFL is selling a portable ping pong table that anyone with an ounce of common sense (or eight ounces of suds) realizes is actually a beer pong table, the league also hopes to restrict the extent to which the thing will actually be used on game day.
Per Michael McCarthy of USA Today, the NFL wants teams to take steps to limit access to booze.
According to McCarthy, the league has recommended that the 32 teams (and 31 stadiums in which they play) limit tailgating to 3.5 hours before games, and to do a better job of monitoring and enforcing rules against excessive alcohol consumption in stadium parking areas.
(Maybe they should just insert a tracking chip in each of those officially licensed ping pong tables.)
McCarthy reports that the league also wants teams to limit customers to no more than two 20-ounce beers, or one 24-ounce beer, per transaction. Teams also will print the following message on most cups of beer: “Fans don’t let fans drive drunk.”
We approve the efforts, but we’ve been to enough games to know that the NFL has a better chance of overtaking soccer as the top sport outside the U.S. than it does eradicating the drunks from American football stadiums.
But, hey, if one less drunken yay-hoo is on the highway after a game, the efforts are worth every second and cent devoted to them.