Packers Fan Loses Bid To Wear Gear On Sidelines For Bears Game

CHICAGO — A federal court judge in Chicago has denied a Packers fan's bid to wear his Green Bay gear on the sidelines before Sunday's game against the Bears. Russell Beckman, 56, requested a temporary restraining order and injunction against the Bears so that he could stand on the team's sidelines in his gear during the pregame event.

The die-hard fan filed a lawsuit last year against the Bears, which claimed that in 2016 the team stopped him from attending the pregame warmup because he was wearing his Packers gear. Beckman said he wore Packers attire without objections during the 2014 and '15 seasons. In the suit, Beckman sought to wear his Green Bay gear during on-field pregame warmup sessions at Soldier Field.

The lawsuit seeks to force the Bears to drop its "no opposing team" dress code, a restriction Beckman believes is illegal because Soldier Field is a publicly owned and funded facility.

The lawsuit named the Chicago Bears and the NFL as defendants; however, the NFL succeeded in its bid to be removed from the suit. The lawsuit against the Bears is pending.

In a ruling obtained by the Chicago Tribune, Judge Joan Gottschall earlier this week said that Beckman standing "on the opposing team’s side line implies an association with the opposing team while standing in the end zone mere feet away from Bears players warming up suggests to the average football fan something much more out of place.”

Beckman, a high school social studies and special education teacher from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, contends that the Bears' refusal to let him wear his Packers gear for the pregame activity stopped him from fully enjoying the experience and the game.

Beckman has had Chicago season tickets since 2003, and has redeemed season-ticket reward points to hang out on the sidelines while teams warm up before home games for three NFL seasons.

Packers fan Russell Beckman — a Chicago Bears season-ticket holder from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin — shows his support for Green Bay in a 2015 photo during a pregame warmup experience at Soldier Field. The photo was included in Beckman's federal lawsuit filed Friday, June 16, against the Bears and the NFL. (Photo via Russell Beckman)