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Michael Ubowski seems to think so in this article!!!!
Hearing-impaired advocate sues Arizona Cardinals By Paul Giblin The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Mar 1, 2013 11:40 PM The Arizona Cardinals and the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority fail to provide adequate accommodations for hearing-impaired fans at University of Phoenix Stadium, according to a lawsuit filed by the state and an advocate for the hearing-impaired. Cardinals spokesman Mark Dalton told The Arizona Republic that the issue already has been addressed, but an attorney for Mesa resident Michael Ubowski said the new measures to help the hearing-impaired aren’t enough. “We wouldn’t have filed a lawsuit if we agreed with them that it’s been fixed. There’s still some improvements needed,” said J.J. Rico, an attorney with the Phoenix-based Arizona Center for Disability Law, which represents Ubowski. The stadium in Glendale is owned and operated by the sports authority. The NFL team has played its home games at the $455 million facility since 2006. The suit was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court on Jan. 18 and was moved to U.S. District Court on Feb. 21. Ubowski and the state want the court to order the defendants to provide video-board captioning of the stadium announcer’s words so that hearing-impaired fans will be able to read the play-by-play information that other fans hear over the stadium’s public-address system. “This is a fan complaint that dates back a number of years,” Dalton said in an e-mail. “Last year, we gave him what he asked for by installing open captioning next to the stadium scoreboards. This court filing is just a part of the legal process.” The Cardinals installed two screens that display real-time captioning under the north and south scoreboards at a cost that exceeded $100,000, Dalton said. The team and sports authority are involved in settlement discussions with Ubowski and state Attorney General’s Office officials, and the Cardinals believe that the matter should be resolved soon, Dalton said. However, Rico said the matter isn’t settled. The new boards are not visible from every seat in the stadium, and the color scheme could be improved, he said. “Right now, they’re not using an effective color. They’re using color combinations to fit the Cardinals’ schemes, but not to fit the need for the captioning,” Rico said. The boards display white lettering on red backgrounds. A more readable color combination would be white or light yellow lettering on black backgrounds, like captioning on most TVs, Rico said. “We’re working on the contrast,” Cardinals President Michael Bidwill said this week. Furthermore, TV monitors in the stadium’s concourses don’t always display captioning, which would allow hearing impaired-fans to follow the game while buying snacks, Rico said. As a bonus, captioning would benefit every fan in the stadium when crowd noise becomes so loud that the public-address system can’t be understood by anyone, the attorney said. The matter arose when Ubowski, a former commissioner on the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, encountered difficulties with a hand-held captioning devise provided at the stadium during a 2010 game against the Oakland Raiders. Stadium employees were unfamiliar with the devices, and Ubowski missed the first quarter of the game just trying to obtain one. In addition, the electronic gadget, which is about the size of a cellphone, forced him to shift his attention from the field to the personal device, causing him to miss significant portions of the action, according to the suit. Then after a short time, the piece of equipment malfunctioned and Ubowski encountered “countless” operating problems for the rest of the game, which the Cardinals won 31-27. Rico said he hopes negotiations with the Cardinals and the sports authority continue and that suitable accommodations can be made before the matter reaches the courtroom. The stadium seats 63,400 fans for regular NFL games and 72,200 for special events, such as the Super Bowl. |