The 49ers and the city of San Francisco held a press conference outside Candlestick Park on Monday following the outbreaks of violence at Saturday’s 49ers-Raiders preseason contest. The game saw two post-game shootings and various in-stadium attacks resulting in significant police involvement.
Jed York announced at the press conference that he will recommend to the NFL that the 49ers-Raiders preseason series be postponed for “some period of time.” This follows Tim Kawakami’s earlier report that an NFL league source said the series would be coming to an end, possibly replaced by a closed 49ers-Raiders scrimmage.
Part of the issue in with Saturday’s game was the fact that tickets were going for pennies on the dollar, meaning anybody who wanted to cause trouble could get in. More importantly, by spending fewer dollars on tickets, these people could spend more money on alcohol, potentially escalating the problems. Jed York suggested in a radio interview that switching to an 18-game schedule could potentially curb this problem.
While some might view this as a poorly timed push for an 18-game schedule, he actually makes a good point. Fewer preseason games means fewer under-priced tickets on the market. Whether that decreases violence at rivalry games remains to be seen.