Dan Snyder's Vision Failing Deaf Redskins Fans

Deaf to the needs of everyone

I missed this story last season so I wanted to comment on it since it is back in the news. Last August the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) filed a lawsuit against the team for failing to provide adequate accommodation to three deaf Redskins fans from Maryland, fans that attend games regularly.

The hearing-impaired fans simply want the ability, same as hearing fans, to follow the game. They have asked that captioning to be a part of the scoreboard and monitor displays in Redskins Stadium for all plays, announcements, penalties, halftime events, etc, everything.

The team responded by hiring a stenographer and 'setting up' 'hundreds' of monitors for hearing-impaired fans. The NAD responded that the team has not done enough and is pressing forward with the lawsuit.

This is a serious matter and the Redskins should demonstrate inclusion by going above and beyond to make handicapped fans at home in Redskins Stadium for (at least) three reasons:

1. It's public relations 101. Railing that cripples are hurting your business is never a good strategy. Saying you would do some stuff for them but not really consider anything big makes you look petty, callous and greedy.

The print edition of the story had a second picture in addition to the stenographer with the big goofy grin that says, I get to get paid to watch Redskins games? It is hard to tell what the picture is of but the caption says it is 'one of two' monitors installed by the team to display captions. Then the story says the Redskins say that have installed 'hundreds' of monitors. Although I have been to at least one Redskins game every year of the new stadium I am not certain closed captions are displayed, I can't recall. In any event let's give the team the benefit of the doubt and go over this, where are all the monitors.

Luxury suites, check. So if you're deaf and in a luxury box you can read the captions.

Passageways in and around concessions, check. So if you are deaf and waiting in line for a hot dog you can read the captions.

That's it. If you are in a regular or club seat, I don't know, watching the game then you get nothing but from that second photo what appear to be two horzontally-opposed monitors for displaying, among no doubt lots of advertising, closed captions.

The team says putting captions on the jumbotron is 'not feasible,' which I think means they don't want to clutter the screen with text that ultimately serves less than one percent of attendees, not to mention how to coordinate captions when the screen switches from player card to game action to replay to fan of the game etc etc yada yada.


2. The Redskins face discrimination charges every day they exist. That whole 'redskins as a pejorative' is the easiest jumping-off point ever created for an argument. No matter how good the team is, no matter how hard they try to please fans, no matter how accessible the stadium, all arguments related to the team can simply come down to this: well the name is racist so who cares about (whatever the argument was about in the first place).

This does not sound good to me: the Redskins name is a racist slur on American Indians. This sounds worse: the Redskins name is a racist slur on American Indians and the team discriminates against the deaf.

As an adjunct to number one above it would be in the best interests of the team to demonstrate that all football fans regardless of physical abilities are welcome and accommodated. Give blind fans a personal speaker system with separate feeds for the home broadcast, the visitors' broadcast and the stadium call. Send interns down to push fans in wheelchairs up the ramps. You get the idea. It must be hard enough in life feeling like the world is designed against you and that you are always the recipient of the world's sympathies. Wouldn't it be great if Redskins Stadium was the most inclusive in the world?


3. Technology can be brought to bear to right this problem. The article from the Post mentions that one of the plaintiffs was unsatisfied with the ten-minute delay between when things happen and when they are captioned up onto the screen. From the article I cannot determine whether that is the delay in the current system or if the Colorado-sourced system the team offered to buy to placate this fan has this delay. Either way I watch football at home with captions all the time and it's never more than a few seconds behind so I don't know what the problem is there. Are you writing the captions on cue cards and holding them up to a camera?

And isn't there some device that you can rent to watch and listen to the game from your seat? This thing, the Kangaroo? Why not give one to every sight- or hearing-impaired person at the game, courtesy of the team? With this thing in my lap I can see and hear not only the Redskins game, but every other concurrent NFL game. Seems like I just solved the Redskins PR problem.

But wait, if it were that easy, why doesn't the team just do it? A guess would be because of some fear the team has that suddenly every ticketholder will wander over to the Kangaroo booth with a white cane and a tin horn claiming to be handicapped and asking for a handout. If this is the case I bet you can work something out with a registration or some other vetting process. It should be pretty easy to separate the legitimately handicapped from the drunk guy in the Eagles jersey.*


The Redskins parting shot in this piece is this:

There is no other stadium in the NFL or professional sports that has attempted to accommodate the hearing impaired as much as we do.

I doubt this is true in fact I'll bet a dollar it's bullshit, there are too many pro teams and facilities in this country for the Redskins, with their lack of economic need to accommodate anyone much less everyone, to be the standard-bearers. Besides, the 'even though our efforts fail everyone else fails harder' excuse never won any respect.


Update: I found the Redskins note to disabled/handicapped fans here. It says the team provides listening devices for the hearing- (and presumably sight-) impaired, and those monitors in the bowl are up on the 50 yard lines. If anyone has used these services from the team or if anyone from the team would like to respond, please email me, I am happy to talk.

Update 2: I also found the Deaf DC blog, a different take on this with comments.



* Then again maybe not. Bad example but you get the drift.

Redskins Stadium from here.