During a professional ice hockey game in Ice City, one of the home-team fans threw a mug of beer onto the visiting team's bench. Initially, the visiting team's players and coaching staff ignored what had happened. There was no facility or event security near the player benches to monitor the fans or prevent the fans from heckling and causing disruptive behavior. A few minutes later, a second home-team fan threw another mug of beer on the visiting team's players. As this occurred, one of the visiting team's assistant coaches became enraged, climbed over the partition that separates the players from the crowd, started running up in the crowd, and attempted to reach the fan who threw the beer. The assistant coach reached the fan and started to physically assault him. As this occurred, other fans became involved and started physically assaulting the assistant coach. Event security finally arrived, and then police and emergency personnel arrived after the incident had settled. The fan assaulted by the assistant coach was taken to the hospital with severe cuts and was bleeding out of one ear. The assistant coach sustained a broken nose after being assaulted by multiple fans.

Address the following points:

• What do you think are the legal issues involved?
• What is the appropriate law and why?
• Who is legally liable?
• What could have been done by the sports organization or facilities management to address the risks?

Reference:

Moorman, A. M., Sharp, L., & Claussen, C. (Eds.). (2021). Sport law: A managerial approach (4th ed.). Routledge.