The purpose of Seahawks declaring cops will be dressed as foes’ fans at home games
Cops dressed as fans for the other team inside Lumen Field?
The Seahawks announced Thursday they will have undercover police officers dressed in San Francisco 49ers gear Sunday for the NFL opening game in Seattle. They will have the same going on for all home games this season.
The purpose of announcing this?
To be a reminder. And, perhaps, to jab back at 49ers fans.
The Seahawks actually have been doing this for about a dozen years.
The team and Seattle police department first announced this operation at Seahawks home games in 2013. That was at the start of the team’s run of consecutive Super Bowl appearances, and at the start of the season Seattle won its only NFL championship.
At the time, a Seattle Police Department spokesman said the initiative followed similar undercover programs at other stadiums around the league.
Again Sunday, undercover Seattle police officers paid by the team on overtime from normal SPD duty will be dressed in 49ers gear inside Lumen Field. It is, the Seahawks said in a team statement reinforcing the program, “an effort to quickly detect guests violating the fan code of conduct.”
“Law enforcement and Lumen Field event staff will proactively intervene to support an environment where all fans can enjoy the game free from the following behaviors,” the statement issued Thursday said.
The team said that was “including: behavior that is unruly, disruptive or illegal in nature; over-intoxication or other signs of alcohol or substance impairment; offensive language or obscene gestures, to include the use of such language or gestures concerning a person’s race, ethnicity, color, gender, religion, creed, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or national origin; or to instigate, incite or encourage a confrontation or physical assault...verbal or physical harassment of home or opposing team fans...”
The Seahawks want to reinforce the perception their games are fan-friendly environments — no matter which team you are rooting for inside Lumen Field.
That has also been an issue in Seattle.
There have been games in recent seasons, particularly Seahawks-49ers games in Seattle, in which fans of visiting teams wearing foes’ colors have dominated the lower, 100-level seating area directly behind the visiting-team bench area on the east side of the stadium. Since that’s where the television cameras are trained while broadcasting each Seahawks home game, the colors not blue and green inside Lumen Field get a lot of attention.
Those 100-level season tickets are where many secondary market ticket brokers own Seahawks seats.
Seahawks’ home-game woes
Those police officers dressed as fans of visiting teams have likely had to cheer a lot to stay undercover in recent Seahawks seasons.
Late last season, Dec. 15, the Packers came to Seattle and dominated the Seahawks in a 30-13 win. Cheeseheads and Green Bay fans were all over Lumen Field that night chanting “GO PACK, GO!”
Days later, then-Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf wished aloud Seattle’s fans would fill Seattle’s stadium.
“I know in the first quarter, second or third play of the game, it got crazy loud in there. I looked around and there were a lot of Green Bay fans,” Metcalf said last December. “They did a great job traveling.
“But just wishing us 12s didn’t sell as many tickets as they did to make sure we kept the home-field advantage.”
The Seahawks traded Metcalf to Pittsburgh this offseason (not because of that comment).
It would help if the Seahawks won their home games.
While season-ticket holders have been told to pay more for their seats year over year, Seattle lost six of nine home games last season. They have won only 16 of 34 home games over the last three seasons.
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald has set winning home games and re-establishing Seattle’s home-field advantage that was decisive a decade ago as a priority for 2025. Players have been talking about that emphasis this week.
“Absolutely,” veteran defensive tackle Jarran Reed said. ““Absolutely. We have to win at home. Point blank. Period.”
Rather than watch their team lose, Seattle fans have often chosen to sell their seats to visiting fans for a steep profit. That has helped them help recoup some or most of their added costs for season tickets.
This year, to aid in the effort of re-establishing a home-field advantage, the Seahawks are tracking season-ticket holders who don’t use their seats and sell them to fans of visiting teams.
“While occasional resale is permitted, renewal eligibility may be impacted if it is determined that your tickets were primarily used for resale purposes,” the team advised season-ticket holders in May. “At the conclusion of each season, accounts that resell a majority of their season tickets will be contacted and be given an opportunity to respond before any renewal eligibility decisions are made.”
The Seahawks like all NFL teams in the advent of digital tickets and the elimination of paper ticketing have the ability to track where tickets go to which secondary buyers.
A report by the 49ers reporter for The San Francisco Standard this week got a lot of attention: “For the first time ever, 49ers fans are expected to be the majority in.... Seattle. Vivid Seats (an online ticket seller) projects 53% of the crowd on Sunday will be 49ers fans,” The Standard’s David Lombardi posted on X/Twitter.
The Seahawks say their numbers show that report is inaccurate. The team says it expects about 7% of roughly 69,000-seat Lumen Field to be filled by 49ers fans who bought Seahawks tickets.
Within that 7%, ticket-tracking numbers by the team showed that as of Thursday 24% of the 100-level seats behind San Francisco’s bench have been sold to Niners fans.
That number was 40% last season when the 49ers won at Seattle in October.
The Seahawks have about 63,000 season-ticket holders, plus a waiting list they call the “Blue Pride” list of 12,000 more wanting to buy season tickets.
The team leaves approximately 6,000 tickets available for each home game for fans to purchase on a single-game basis.
This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 2:32 PM.
