No More Away Fans

I sat there and watched my favorite team in the whole wide world get run out of their home gym. But if you woke up from a 3-day blackout in the stands no clue where you were. You’d guess you were in Dallas by the way the fans were cheering. This has been a common occurrence over the past few years—so many opposing fans are in the stands.  There’s always a big increase when the stars come to town. Like your Luka Doncic and LeBron James, always draw a crown. The influence some of these players have is just massive. And a ticket sale is a ticket sale, sure, but what are the effects of a D – FENSE chant when the home team is on offense??  

While I listened to Dallas Fans hoot and holler all night, all I could think of were ways to keep away fans out of the field house. It’s not THEY grow basketball here; it's WE grow basketball, dammit

1. Let the fans move down! If there are open seats in the second half – move Pacers fans down. If you aren’t there by then sucks to sucks, no refunds, pal. Maybe even unfairly kick out away fans to make more seats for Pacers fans in the lower bowl. That’s like two birds, one stone right there.

2. Offer a jersey exchange program for free tickets. Bring in a jersey from another team, no questions asked. Bring in that one jersey you bought in college. Steal that one annoying coworker that’s a Celtics fan wears on casual Fridays. Beat up one of those dudes with the TikTok haircuts with a white hoodie and Tyler Herro jersey. You know what I’m talking about, right? What is that, some kind of uniform or something? Whatever you gotta do to get the jersey, we don’t care. Just throw it in a big fire pit of other burning jerseys while pledging allegiance to the Pacers. Then boom, free tickets.

3. Trapdoor seats. If you cheer for the other team at all, your seat just retracts, opening the trap door to the secret underground lava pit (we all agree not to talk about this since that could be considered a multitude of crimes). The Lava pit could also be a good way to heat the fieldhouse, it could really save dollars on that energy bill.

4. Arrest any parent who doesn’t force their child to be a Pacers fan. I’m thinking 15 years with no parole. That sounds fair. You’re committing child abuse when I push your kid over because you let them wear a Steph Curry jersey. That’s on you; I’m just trying to help.

5. Build several duplicate fieldhouses around the city to confuse away fans. Put out codes to signal true fans which fieldhouse the game is. Definitely don’t tell the Referees the wrong fieldhouse too.

6. A giant moat around Gainbridge Fieldhouse with a series of trials testing fans on their passion, pride, and pacers for access. Fill it with alligators and crocodiles to really send a message.

7. Add a new seating section exclusively for away fans, but the seats are actually in Lucas Oil Stadium. We could lock them in there, and the only way out is to get a key from Jim Irsay, who is hiding somewhere. But he’s doing more of a most dangerous game type of thing. So, he’s hunting them too.

Those all seem like real winners to me. Ethically speaking, there maybe be some pretty dark gray areas. I’m sure those can be ironed out. That’s what lawyers are for. The secret underground lava pit sounds like a good time.