Thursday, March 31, 2011

Captioning at NFL Games

An appeals court has upheld a lower court decision that deaf football fans should have access closed captioning at Washington Redskins' games. Deaf fans have no way of knowing what music is being played over the public address system during games. That's why the NAD sued five years ago on behalf of 3 deaf fans. The court ruled the that this is part of the entertainment experience at FedEx Field, and deaf fans should have access it, under ADA law. But the court also said captioning was not required for play-by-play coverage provided in the stadium concourse through the Redskin's radio station. Since the lawsuit was first filed, the stadium operators started captioning some content on boards throughout the facility. Both courts ruled that this was not enough since this could be stopped at any time.