How to protest at Mavericks games without getting kicked out

Make your voice heard!

Mavs Moneyball editor in charge Kirk Henderson said in his social media caption for our piece conflating Mavericks fans’ ejections from Monday night’s game against the Sacramento Kings with totalitarianism, “The Mavericks want you to comply.” He even added an Andor reference to a later quote-post, which, chef kiss.

In these last 10 days, things have gone from putrid to downright third-world around here. The jack-booted Stormtrooper thugs are coming for some of our best and brightest fans, as well as for some of our most unhinged. We must throw in our lot with all of them. It is us vs. the Adelson regime at this point, and February’s schedule will likely dictate who blinks first.

Going to a Mavs game this month, and again when the Lakers visit on April 9, whether you like it or not, is a political act. Will you stand silent or will you stare the Gestapo down in a game of chicken fit for the annals of DFW sports history? At issue is the following rule listed in the NBA Fan Code of Conduct: Any “clothing, garments or signs displaying explicit language, profanity or derogatory characterization towards any person(s)” is grounds for ejection from any NBA game.

Fans need to figure out clever ways to avoid compliance here, because the fans are on the right side of this issue, not the front office. So, what are some strategies Mavs fans might employ to effectively stage an in-game protest that doesn’t result in getting a jack-boot shoved up your ass?

First off, some basics. When bringing a sign into American Airlines Center, make sure it’s 11”x17” or smaller. It appears from social media posts from recent games that security personnel has been letting in signs larger than this. For Stars games, the arena guide lists the size limit as 22”x28” so perhaps that is the size they’re actually using at the door at both Stars and Mavs games.

Next, we’ll want to focus on slogans, either on those signs or for verbal chants. Fellow Mavs Moneyballer Matt Gilroy, who penned two of this site’s best Nico Harrison reaction pieces since the Dončić trade, suggested “RICE INFO,” since it’s an anagram for “FIRE NICO.” “RICE INFO” is not derogatory, profane or explicit in any sense. It’s completely nonsensical and should pass muster at the door on a shirt or sign or as a chant in the stands.

Along the same lines, and not to make light of the politics of the day, but why not take a page from Trump supporters’ book, flip the script and go with “LET’S GO NICO”? It works as either a chant or on a sign, and it’s worked at NASCAR races and SEC football games since the fall of 2021. One could argue, especially at the front door of the AAC, it’s a message in support of the embattled team GM. No one from the team has to know the hidden meaning implies more of a parallel with the “LET’S GO BRANDON” political slogan, and if you’re confronted by security personnel, you’d have a hell of a case on your hands if you argue it’s in support of the world’s most asinine general manager and still get kicked out.

The topic of how to effectively protest without incurring the wrath of whatever authorities you hope to avoid was broached on the Mavericks Subreddit on Tuesday by Redditor hamahakkimies, who told me in a conversation in the DMs that he is a Mavs fan from Finland — real name Jirka Poropudas. I found his post titled, “How To Protest Like a Pro: A Guide for Unhappy Mavs Fans” particularly insightful — I don’t care where the homie is from.

He lists seven tenants that might help Mavs fans’ protest movement coalesce into something that the powers that be simply can’t stop. For the sake of this writing, I’ll go through three of them, and if you want to see the rest, you should go read his Reddit post.

“Some argue that local fans should simply refuse to go to games and refuse to spend money or engage at all with the team,” Poropudas said. “I believe that protest by omission is not a reasonable approach. If you don’t buy tickets, someone else will. The motivation for my post was the ineffective nature of the disorganized protests we have seen so far. It is easy for the security personnel to collect all offending signs at the door or remove individual protesters yelling “Fire Nico.” Effectively protesting without getting ejected makes it harder for the team to control the narrative — it puts more of that control in the hands of the people.”

Poropudas thinks we need a secret sign, and I agree. The early Christians had the Ikhthys fish as a symbol to identify meeting spaces, so what if Mavericks fans adopted something easily recognizable yet nonverbal as well? What if we took to flashing seven fingers twice for 77, Dončić’s jersey number? You could do that on the jumbotron, and it would be truly ridiculous to get thrown out for something like that, since no one can argue it’s profane, obscene or derogatory in any way.

Photo by Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images

Which leads me to another one of Poropudas’ points: making absurdity the ally of the Mavs fans’ nascent protest movement. Instead of chanting “FIRE NICO,” why not chant “LUKA DONCIC” in support of our erstwhile favorite Maverick? If that gets banned, switch it up to the “MAXI KLEBER” chant. If that gets banned, make it a “MARKIEFF MORRIS” chant. The game here is to keep pushing until we’ve forced the front office to ban chanting “DEREK HARPER,” “ROLONDO BLACKMAN,” “MARK AGUIRRE,” “YOGI FERREL,” “LUCIOUS HARRIS,” “TONY DUMAS” and “KEVIN OLLIE.” How dystopian a crackdown can the Adelson Gestapo really manage? How nuts do they really want to get? Let’s find out, shall we?

“If someone is ejected for flashing seven fingers at the camera or chanting ‘Maxi Kleber,’ the absurdity of the situation is going to make Mavs owners look even worse,” Poropudas said. “If that is even possible.”

Of course, this strategy depends on the solidarity of the masses. There would have to be a big portion of a section who knows the score and is on board with this strategy beforehand. It has to be a coordinated effort, and, honestly, this is asking a lot from the average hoard of DFW sports fans. But hey, it could happen. Prove me wrong, DFW.

The last of Poropudas’ strategies I’ll mention here is a really good one I think will be easy to install and near impossible for the authorities to crack down on — he calls it scoreboard activism. In European football circles, supporters of the German club Borussia Dortmund let out a huge cheer every time their team is playing and the clock strikes 7:09 p.m. This is because on the European (and military) clock, it reads 19:09. Borussia Dortmund was founded in the year 1909. It’s just a thing they do.

So what if Mavs fans let out a subversive roar every time the team reached 77 points? I mean a loud, prolonged cheer lasting most of a minute long or longer — long enough to distinguish it from any other cheer for any basketball related reason, when the Mavericks’ score reads 77 points. They absolutely cannot kick five, 10, 100 or 1,000 Mavericks fans out for cheering loudly for what may appear to the uninitiated to be no reason at all. Cheering is still encouraged, right? I’m sorry — I thought this was America!

Shout out to all my fellow Mavericks fans. I feel more solidarity — more of a connection with you all right now, in the darkest of times, than I ever have before. Let’s make a collective, organized effort to ensure that ownership feels the full brunt of our power expressed in clever ways through collective anger.

I’ll leave you with one last ray of hope in these trying times. The SMU student section at Tuesday’s college basketball game against Pitt at Moody Coliseum has our back. With Harrison apparently in attendance, they started a “Fire Nico” chant in an arena that has no jurisdiction over that particular chant. Let’s resolve to be at least as clever as these clever rich kids as we plan our People’s Protest of the Adelson Regime.