Before [intlink id=”1425″ type=”category”]Super Bowl XLV[/intlink], we wrote about Green Bay Packers fan Daniel Smith, who ponied up Stubhub prices for Super Bowl tickets for himself, his children and their significant others only to find out the NFL wouldn’t let his daughter bring her infant son into the game without a ticket.
Smith’s grandson, Triton, is being breastfed, so his mother couldn’t leave him with someone else.
We spoke to Dan Masonson, the NFL’s director of corporate communications, about the policy.
“This long-standing policy is in place for the safety and comfort of all fans in the stadium. It has never been an issue,” Masonson said.
And that’s about all the league would say, so we threw out this post: How Greedy Is The NFL? This Greedy, Apparently.
Apparently, the NFL decided they had a potential PR problem on their hands and decided to change the policy. Of course, the arrogant pricks at the New York Times took all the credit for it, even though they were far from the first to bring the issue to light.
After the New York Times inquired about the ticketing practice, Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the league said the NFL was modifying its practice. “We have alerted our security that if a fan is carrying an infant, the infant doesn’t need a ticket,” McCarthy said.
Always image conscious, the NFL eventually did what it should have done to begin with, but in an evil twist of fate, it didn’t help Smith.
He ended up spending another $2,700 on a ticket for Triton before the NFL reversed field and changed their policy.
I’m sure Triton was thankful to have his own seat.