If you’ve been to an NFL game or any other massive sporting event lately, you know that the tailgate scene is not the most child-friendly environment ever conceived. Between the drinking and the cursing and the post-game assaults, the American tailgate scene has begun to look like Stage 9 of the coming apocalypse. And here’s the biggest sign of all that things are out of hand: unlicensed mobile strip clubs. Oh yes. This happened. From the NFL:
Investigators believe fans tailgating before a recent Lions home game were allowed onboard the "Booty Lounge," a large red and black bus replete with two stages, steel dancing poles, tinted windows and even a smoke machine, after forking over a $10 donation to its operators, Detroit Police spokeswoman Eren Stephens said Thursday.
Authorities told the NFL they were still trying to ascertain if such mobile hoochie services were illegal, but allow me to jump to conclusions: THEY ARE CRAZY ILLEGAL.
Don’t get me wrong. I support American ingenuity, especially on all nudity-related matters. But a mobile strip club outside of games could potentially draw a certain amount of undesirable clientele to an NFL game. And I say this knowing full well that the NFL is hypocritical to frown on this kind of stuff when there are team-sanctioned cheerleaders in the stadium who probably earn less per game than these fine ladies working the trailer pole. This just adds to the litany of good excuses to not bother going to the stadium on Sunday, especially now that you can watch every game in HD from home. The cops shut this one down, but surely clever tailgaters will take this idea and run with it.
And the NFL is going to have to figure out how to make it palatable to pay hundreds of dollars attend live games when there’s stuff like this going on in the parking lot. Because trust me, it will drive people away. Not me, of course. I have a wad of tens ready to go. But as we hurtle toward a future where people have less money to go to live games that are less friendly, the NFL is going to have to figure out how to regulate the stadium environment without resorting to party-pooping measures that alienate the same drunken fans the league openly courts. They’ve had their cake and eaten it for a long time now. That won’t last.
