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Nicole Birsner
Professor Birren
SPM373-001

The Legal Implications of Stadium and Risk Management Involving Terrorism

Introduction. Operating a sporting event is a massive task, one of which is ensuring the
safety of all employees and attendees. Sporting events draw in thousands of people to one
confined space that has been susceptible to numerous terrorist attacks. Because of this risk,
multiple plans must be put into place to not only prevent a terrorist attack but also prevent the
risk of liability claims. Risk management and security practices have changed for sporting events
because of the increasing threat of terrorism seen in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, 9/11 and
the Boston Marathon bombing. The purpose of this paper is to explore different world events that
changed the way the sports world approaches risk management.
1972 Munich Olympic Games Since the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, there has
been a significant increase in the attention paid to stadium security, particularly when combatting
terrorism. The tragic situation involved Palestinian terrorists, under the group Black September,
killing 11 Israeli athletes (Boyle, 2009). The German government attempted to save the hostages
multiple times; however, they were unsuccessful. The first was an attempt to break into the
Olympic village and save the hostages. The second was an attempt to intercept the terrorists as
they transported the terrorists. Misinformation and incompetence such as thinking there were
five terrorists instead of eight contributed to the rescue failures. Police officers left their post
when they were supposed to be helping out the snipers, who had no sniper training. Several

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police officers also ended up dying due to the incompetence of both the German police and the
International Olympic Committee.
The tragic unfolding of the Munich Games was covered live on television. People around
the world watched Germany continue to fail the Israeli athletes. This taught terrorists big scale
events gave them unlimited media coverage. The global stage [provided] the terrorists with
unprecedented media coverageterrorists realized how the media could be exploited and focus
the worlds attention to their cause (Taylor & Toohey, 2006, p. 201). This event began to show
the threat sporting events were under with terrorism. Effective emergency action plans must be
put into place for situations like this. Included in the movie One Day in September, the
German government asked Georg Sieber to look at the security of the games and come up with
different possible situations that could happen. The sport psychologist found 26 different
possibilities with number 21 being similar to the tragedy that took place. Because the only way
to get rid of that risk was to avoid it and cancel the games, the government chose to ignore those
findings.
In order to try and get rid of the situation at hand, the German government decided to pay
the victims families. The federal government made a one-time payment of $1 million, with
$400,000 per widow and $100,000 per orphan or parent of the unmarried. After 20 years of
collecting evidence, they finally had enough to go to court in 1994. However, the German
authorities did not want to take responsibility for the situation that unfolded. When they came to
court the relatives were undone by a crueltechnicality, the judge citing the German statute
of limitations that requires negligence claims to be brought within three years of the relevant
information becoming available. Despite the dubious nature of this outcome, the case was
dismissed on the same grounds in 2000 on the next rung of the judicial ladder (Schiller &

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Young, 2010, p. 219). The case reached the Federal Court in 2003, however the parties settled
out of court. Although the terms of the agreement were not disclosed, the 25 families received
three million euros in settlement.
To this day, authorities involved in the Munich Games refuse to admit liability for the
events that occurred. This was one of the influences of the 2004 Athens Olympic games when
they spent an estimated $1 billion on security measures (Taylor & Toohey, 2006). The number
one aspect of event management is making sure the safety of your participants, spectators, and
sponsors are guaranteed. As seen in Munich, when safety is not taken seriously it results in both
ethical and legal issues. No matter how much the Germans wanted to shed their image from
World War II, security and safety should have continued to be the goal. At the end of the day, a
stereotyped reputation of the country of Germany could have taken longer to shed rather than the
lives of 11 Israeli athletes. Both the safety and lives of Israeli athletes
The Impact of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics & September 11 Attacks. Sometimes,
security measures are not enough. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games a pipe bomb filled with
nails exploded in the Centennial Olympic Park. This killed Alice Hawthorne and injured 111
others. According to reports an agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation noticed the
backpack that contained the bomb and got a team of explosive experts to the scene but they were
not aware that a 911 call had been placed 23 minutes prior to the discovery of the backpack.
Because of the lack of information, officers were not able to clear the area of concertgoers before
the bomb detonated. Several lawsuits came out of this incident, which showcased the importance
of preventing harm so an organization does not need to spend money on legal reasons.
September 11, 2001 was a terrorist attack that stopped the world. Four commercial
airplanes were hijacked in the United States. Two crashed into the Twin Towers of the World

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Trade Centre in New York City, one crashed into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed into a field
in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. This was the most successful attempt against the United
States and therefore put sport organizations at unease. The Munich Games made it clear that
sporting events could be targets for terrorist attacks, however 9/11 again made it painfully clear
that this could happen in the United States.
Securing United States stadiums and other venues was (and still is) no simple task.
Stadiums are difficult to secure because large numbers of people are constantly entering and
leaving the facilities (Piccarello, 2005, p. 366). Sporting events are also soft targets and
therefore are harder to secure than other events. Emergency Action Plans (EAPs) needed to be
updated and trained to event staff as soon as possible. Improvement of security is not just
influenced by the safety of the consumers; it is also influenced by the possibility of negligence
cases. It is possible to be held responsible for a third-partys criminal act if the right steps were
not taken to try and prevent said criminal act. According to Piccarello, the Department of
Homeland Security sponsors drillson how to handle a terrorist attack (p. 369). This allows for
the venue to take steps to be as prepared as possible. Legislation pieces such as the September
11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 (9/11 Fund) and the Terrorism Risk Insurance
Protection Act of 2002 (TRIA) are also relevant to sport. The 9/11 Fund was created to provide
fast, guaranteed, and no fault compensation to victims. It is therefore relevant to the discussion
of the liability of sports and entertainment venues in the event of a terrorist attack (Piccarello,
2005). People criticize this legislation and ask is this would fail to encourage businesses to try
and actively prevent terrorism? The 9/11 Fund is there to help recovery and therefore outweighs
the questions raised by opponents. TRIA is aimed at stabilizing the insurance industry because of
the wariness of insurance companies to insure business at risk for terrorist attacks. It is there to

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absorb the cost of terrorism insurance and make insurance more affordable to businesses
(Piccarello, p. 389).
Changes in NFL Policies. After the September 11 attacks, many of the National Football
Leagues (NFL) policies were reassessed. They made efforts to improve stadium security when
it organized a task force to create a plan for best practices for NFL stadiums and best practices
for security (Piccarello, 368). This allowed the NFL to create Emergency Action Plans that are
more suited to the current times. It also allows for a better chance to be released of any
negligence claims in the event of a terrorist attack. On top of task forces, a recent federal law
made restrictions on airspace over certain sports stadiums permanent. There is still the threat of
radio controlled planes and drones.
The NFL has also done smaller things to secure the safety of their fans. In 2013, the NFL
created a new bag policy, which changed the size and type of bags allowed inside the stadium. It
is now limited to a clear bag or a small purse (which have size limitations). By having these
limitations, it decreases the chance of prohibited items getting brought into the stadium.
Therefore, this decreases the chance of severe violence by any spectator. By decreasing violent
behavior, they decrease the chance of lawsuits. The clear bags support the Department of
Homeland Securitys If You See Something, Say Something awareness campaign that
encourages the public to report suspicious behavior (Scheller, 2014). Stadiums also encourage
fans to text, call, or alert a staff member of any suspicious activity they observe while attending
the event.
The NFL has also entrusted employees in monitoring social media sites for things such as
threats and plans to rush the field. This allows employees to employ crowd management and not

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have to get to the point of crowd control. This is extremely important in avoiding legal issues, as
seen in Ellis Park Stadium and Hillsborough tragedies.
Boston Marathon Bombings. As seen through previous examples, keeping a crowd safe
is not an easy task. When risk is managed effectively, unlike the Munich Games, it can make a
huge difference in the amount of casualties and deaths. This was seen in the 2013 Boston
Marathon. On April 15th, 23,000 participants partook in the marathon. At 2:49pm, with more than
5,500 runners still in the race, two homemade bombs went off in the crowd at the finish line. The
bombs caused a lot of destruction along with 260 casualties and three deaths (Boston Marathon
Bombings, 2014). Managing risk can be successful if five things are done: 1) preventing risk by
reducing the damage they create if something occurs, 2) be prepared to respond, 3) respond
effectively when something occurs, 4) prepare to recover and the last being recover as swiftly as
possible (Leonard, 2013). The Boston Marathon did this to the best of their ability.
The Boston Marathons emergency action plan was planned and executed nearly
perfectly. The week of the marathon law enforcement officials indicated that bomb-sniffing
dogs swept the area near the finish line in the morning before the race began and again in the
afternoon when the lengthy process of finishing was beginning (Leonard & Howitt, p. 4).
Security personnel were also stationed all along the route, along with other security precautions
(Leonard, 2013). Doctors and emergency personnel were also readily available because those are
needed at the marathon in case injury or health problems occur. These factors helped keep
fatalities low. Even more so, medical facilities had been involved in extensive planning, practice,
and training in the event of a mass casualty event (Leonard & Howitt, 2013).
One of the crisis management plans that were in place during the Boston Marathon, the
Multiple Casualty Incident Plan (MCI Plan) was extremely important. The MCI Plan must

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define incident leadership, the role and responsibilities of all first responders, and the
communitys capabilities, and mutual aid systems to address potential threats. Special permitted
events must also be required to work with local officials to ensure that there are contingency
plans in place to meet the potential needs based on a comprehensive risk analysis of the event,
venue and host community (Mangeri, 2013). Risk action and control were seen to be extremely
quick at the Boston Marathon bombings and shows how prepared the city was for the possibility
of a terrorist attack. The rapid and effective response to the Boston Marathon bombings attests
to the regions emergency planning and preparedness efforts (Leonard & Howitt, 2013).
The final part of the risk management plan was the pursuit of the suspects, which made
this emergency action plan exceptional. One of the key features of the actions performed by law
enforcement had been the high degree of collaboration between a variety of law enforcement
agencies federal, state, and local (Leonard & Howitt, 2013, p. 9). This was a highly effective
way to manage risk and ensure safety because of the collaboration. Keeping everyone on the
same page allows for a low or no percentage of error to occur during an emergency action plan.
Conclusion. Risk management in sporting events is a growing task that organizations
continue to face. The organizations need to make sure that they are both ensuring the safety of all
attendees of an event while making sure they are obeying the law. Because sporting events have
become targets of terrorist attacks, organizations have an even higher change of being held liable
for any harm that would occur. Both the government and organizations will continue to tweak
and create new legislation to tackle terrorism threats at sporting events to create the safest
environment for all participants and spectators.
References

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Boston Marathon Bombings. (2015). Retrieved from A&E.

Boyle, P., & Haggerty, K. D. (2009). Spectacular security: Mega-events and the security
complex. International Political Sociology, 257-274.

Leonard, H. B., & Howitt, A. M. (2013). Preliminary thoughts and observations on Boston
bombings. Harvard University, 1-12.

Mangeri, A. (2013, April 16). Attack at the Boston Marathon and the value of emergency
planning. Emergency Planning. Retrieved from
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Boston-Marathon-Emergency-Planning.html

Piccarello, M. (2005). Terrorism, tourism, and torts: Liability in the event of a terrorist attack on
a sports or entertainment venue, Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal, 12 (2), 1-28.

Scheller, C. (2014, May 1). The real deep threat to the NFL is security. Sports Litigation Alert.
Retrieved from http://newhaven.edu/757731.pdf

Schiller, K., & Young, C. (2010). The 1972 Munich Olympics and the making of modern
Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Taylor, T., & Toohey, K. (2006). Impacts of terrorism-related safety and security measures at a
major sport event. Event Management, issue 9, 199-209.