The NFL’s Arizona Cardinals franchise is under fire today as a fan claims she was told she had to remove a “Make America Great Again” (aka MAGA) hat in order to enter their stadium for the team’s game against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday.
According to a rep from the Cardinals, they did issue an apology in a statement obtained by Fox News.
“In an isolated incident at Sunday’s game, a stadium security member misunderstood a policy on prohibited items. Like most venues, ‘signage, posters, flags, or displays that are….political in nature’ are not permitted. However, that did not apply in this instance. Moving forward we will work to provide clarity to all stadium personnel in these situations. We have also reached out to the individual involved to communicate that their experience was not consistent with our policies and practices and to apologize for that,” the statement read.
Susan Rosener claimed that she and her husband were on their way to their seats before a stadium staffer mistakenly told her to take off her hat.
“You can’t bring that in here,” the staffer said, according to Rosener, via News 12 Phoenix.
“She’s like, ‘No political hats or shirts.’ And I said, ‘I haven’t heard that at all.’ And I said, ‘That doesn’t make sense to me.’ And she goes, ‘I said, Take your hat off,'” Rosener said. “In retrospect, I wish I would have stood my ground a little bit, but I wasn’t sure what the repercussions would be, and my husband would kill me if I did something with the season tickets or that jeopardizes them somehow.”
However, according to Turning Point Action Field Rep. VP Alyssa Goncales, this isn’t the first time the organization has allegedly made fans take off the hats.
Goncales posted alleged screenshots of text messages with other supposed attendees who were either also forced to remove MAGA hats or witnessed others being forced to.
A friend of friend went to the @AZCardinals game yesterday in her very tasteful black Make America Great Again hat. As she goes to enter the stadium a female security guard proceeds to stop her and tell her she can’t enter the stadium with her hat.
The security guard then… pic.twitter.com/5nLeYTKUgI
— Alyssa Goncales (@AlyssaGoncales) September 16, 2024
In response, the team said:
“We have only heard from one individual. But if there were a couple others that had a similar interaction that should not have happened either. Again, it’s not our practice and in the 18+ seasons we’ve been in this stadium, it apparently has never occurred previously. Moving forward, though, we will work with all of the third party groups that interact with our fans to make sure this abundantly clear.”
It’s reported that the Cardinals do have a list of banned items for entering State Farm Stadium on game days, but “political hats or shirts” are not on that list.