Yeah, we couldn’t actually do this. Enforcement would be a wee bit difficult and expensive. Not to mention you’d have to repeal the first amendment. But even if there were no direct legal barriers, it just wouldn’t be enforced unless it were already overwhelmingly popular, which is too counterfactual to be useful.

I think most fans would see the logic there, so it’s more likely one of these ditches that the regulators have to dig in order to feel like their life has a point.

It probably has something to do with how people are at their most bestial & mindlessly aggressive & moblike at sporting events.

Consider the Football War (>3k deaths), or the Heysel Stadium disaster (39 dead, 600 injured), or the Hillsborough Disaster (96 dead, 766 injured), or…

Well, you can look at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_violent_spectator_incidents_in_sports or https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Category:Violence_in_sports or https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Football_hooliganism or https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Violence_in_sports if the topic interests you.

And on the topic of banning gestures and other incitements to fight, here are some random examples:

http://jonathanturley.org/2008/03/05/north-carolina-officer-stops-bus-and-arrests-kids-for-making-faces-and-obscene-gestures-at-him/
http://www2.dothaneagle.com/dea/news/crime_courts/article/dothan_man_faces_felony_charge_after_giving_deputy_the_middle_finger/75772/
http://dawgguide.onlineathens.com/stories/082208/cop_321591128.shtml
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/19/1023864454682.html
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90779/90871/6544913_txt.html (notice this one was literally just pointing a finger)

Given the use of the word “excessive” I think (originally at least) the rational was not to ban endzone celebrations, but celebrations that might border on or cross over into taunting. In the meantime, it seems that maybe everyone involved just doesn’t want to get caught up in legalisms and just basically banned it outright?

I’m not up to speed on the state of permissible end zone celebration, but my guess is that it’s gotten too restrictive.

“Why ban fingers at sport events but not the rest?” Outside of private events, expression is a right, and banning smug looks would be unconstitutional. Another aspect to consider is why police will press assault charges against hockey players who fight in a bar but not when they fight on the ice? Social convention I guess?

By way of what spectators want and the financial motivations of the various sports regulating bodies, perhaps the ‘excessive celebration’ is more likely to push away fans of losing teams than it is to attract fans to winning teams.

“Excessive celebration” I think is (was supposed to be?) a euphemism for taunting.

What is the name for a rule that bans something because it’s too hard to draw the distinction between an acceptable implementation of something (celebration on scoring) vs an unacceptably implementation of something (taunting on scoring)? If it is not named, it ought to be, lots of things in life are like that. I do it every day with my kids (OMG, I’m a fascist!).