Be warned if you’re a Bears season ticket holder. Even if you only mean something as a joke, it’s not a good idea to invoke the name of the Green Bay Packers while doing so. One person decided to play that game. Turns out a green and gold fan was loving the idea of poking the bear (pun intended) and got a reaction he wasn’t expecting.
What is clear is the team didn’t take too kindly when he tried to wear Packers gear to a pregame warmup. They actually denied him access over that. So he responded in kind…….with a lawsuit. The original story comes from Chicago Business and is all sorts of pettiness, rivalry and lunacy rolled into one.
Bears season ticket holder gets ACCESS DENIED
A Bears season ticket holder is suing the team after being denied access to a pregame warmup for wearing Packers gear (H/T @dannyecker)
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) June 19, 2017
“A Green Bay Packers fan is taking the Chicago Bears to court over his right to wear Packers apparel on the field during a pregame warmup session he had access to through the team’s rewards system.
Wisconsin resident and Bears season-ticket holder Russell Beckman sued in federal court, seeking an order that the Bears let him don rival gear on game day.
At issue is the team’s policy for a season-ticket holder rewards program it launched in 2014. That “STH Experiences” system offers rewards points to longtime season-ticket holders that can be redeemed for a series of game-day experiences at Soldier Field.
Beckman, a Bears personal seat license and season-ticket holder since 2003, according to the suit, says in the complaint that he spent his rewards points in 2014 and 2015 on an offer to stand on the edge of the field during pregame warmups and wore Packers gear without any issue.
Then last season, he used his rewards points again for the pregame warm-up offer for the Bears-Packers game in December. A few days before, he got an email from the team with details for the experience that said “no opposing team gear would be allowed.”
Nature of the atmosphere
Wow. That is equal part savage and a tad bit juvenile. Then again isn’t that pretty much par for the course in a long-standing rivalry? This guy may have a legitimate beef in some aspects, but then again the Bears are well within their rights to change the policy. After all, it’s not like they’re barring him from the sidelines. He just can’t wear certain gear.
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Think of it as one of those crafty ways the Nashville Predators tried to get Blackhawks fans to stay out of their home building. Sure it seems a little over the top but the job of the Bears organization is not to make Packers fans feel welcome. It’s to make Bears fans feel welcome. Outsiders from other teams can feel free to whine and complain about it from home.
It’s hard to say how far the man can get with his lawsuit, but odds are the Bears brass aren’t going to lose much sleep over it.
