The NFL, MLB, NCAA and Nascar said that they support a bill presented at Congress on Thursday that would give the State and Local Police the ability to disable drones during sports events, that the leagues say they have become a increasing threat.
The bill, sponsored by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) and entitled the incapacitating enemy flight entry law and suspicious equipment of nutrition (defense), would provide “tools for Local and state law application to protect citizens, “Cotton told ESPN.
“The Local Police already protects the perimeter of these events,” he said. “We already hope they stop a dump truck that causes damage, so we must also give them the tools to protect the airspace from weapons and biological threats.”
Currently, only the application of the federal law on the site in events such as the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Rose Bowl and the Boston Marathon can deactivate unauthorized drones. Almost all other important sporting events, including thousands of NFL and MLB games, have no officials on the site with legal authorization to quickly eliminate a threat of drones.
Cotton said federal agents represent “a small fraction of the application of the law” and that “there are not enough” for the large -scale sporting events of man on the site. “These local and state authorities need to protect restricted airspace,” he said.
In a press release, Cotton's office said the four leagues supported the bill, as did the SEC.
“If promulgated, this legislation would drastically increase the safety of our stadiums and the security of the 70,000,000 fans attending our games annually,” said Senior Security Vice President of MLB, David Thomas, in a statement.
The NFL said that alone in the 2023 season, it experienced more than 2,800 drone raids in temporary restricted airspace around its stadiums, which the FAA defines as less than 3,000 feet and within three nautical miles of the stadium from an hour before until An hour after an hour after an hour. The game.
The NFL stopped the AFC championship game in January 2024 between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City bosses after a drone entered the stadium restricted airspace. The drone operator declared himself guilty of violating the national defense airspace. More recently, on January 11, a childhood game between the Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers was temporarily suspended when a drone flew over the M&T Bank stadium bowl. That alleged drone operator faces multiple federal positions.
“Many drones around great sporting events are amateur or enthusiastic or practical jokes,” Cotton said. “But we cannot run the risk of the life of fans because some of these drones may be equipped to carry explosives or more chilling can be equipped with some type of biological weapon.”
The new bill would apply only to sporting events that already have temporary flight restrictions, including stadiums and stadiums with more than 30,000 people and outdoor meetings with more than 100,000 people. That would include all soccer games of Division I of Division I of the NFL, MLB and the NCAA, Nascar, Indycar and Champ Series.
The NFL Security Director, Cathy Lanier, told Congress in December that intelligence agencies continue to warn that terrorist groups could attack stadiums and other mass meetings.
“Earlier this year, the propaganda of the Islamic State specifically encouraged attacks against stadiums, including the reference to the Summer Games in Paris,” Lanier testified. “Publications on social networks recently threatened drone attacks in the Cricket World Cup in Long Island.”
The bill would require that the eligible law agents complete the counter-rone training and demand federal agencies that create a approved drone mitigation technology list.
Drones can be disabled in several ways, according to Michael Robbins, president and CEO of the Association of Uncreated Vehicle Systems, a commercial association that represents the drone industry. “The most effective way, the way it is used in most cases is to find the operator and ask or demand, that the operator lands the drone.”
Otherwise, the Police can click on the radio frequency of a drone, grab it with a network, cry with another drone or shoot it out of heaven, Robbins said. Most of the commercially available drones are scheduled to land or return to their point of origin if they lose their link to the operator.
While it is not yet clear what opposition will face this bill, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) blocked a bill last year that would have provided the state and local police for the ability to track drones after several sightings They alarmed residents in New Jersey and New York.
In a speech on the floor of the Senate in December, Paul said: “History has shown us again and again how fear and urgent manufactured are used as a pretext to expand government power at the expense of freedom.” He expressed concern about surveillance powers potentially violating the privacy rights of Americans “in the name of security.”
The leagues have been pressing Congress for several years to expand the ability of the police to disable drones.
“For several years, NCAA has expressed concern about the threat that unauthorized drones pose in the NCAA championships and university sporting events,” said Tim Buckley, senior vice president of external issues of the NCAA, in a statement to ESPN. “The safety of competitors, fans and staff working in the events of the NCAA is our top priority.”
