Chase Utley, the second baseman for the world champion Philadelphia Phillies could have given some local Philadelphia television stations major administrative and financial headaches when he used the "F word" to describe his elation at his team's accomplishment. As can be seen in this YouTube clip, Utley says: "World Champions . . . World Fuckin' Champions" in front of about 40,000 fans at Citizens Bank Park and many hundreds of thousands watching live on television.Imagine if the Phillies won two years ago and Utley made the same statement. The use of the "fleeting expletive" would have raised the dander of FCC chair Kevin Martin and his Republican majority, which had reinterpreted its traditional definition of "indecency" to include out of context expletives that bore no relations to sex or excretory activity. [for more background, click here]. However, the regulations were invalidated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and, ironically, the oral arguments in the case, will be held tomorrow in the U.S. Supreme Court. Given the stay of the regulation, it is unlikely the commission would issue any notices of apparent liability at this time.
I just completed an article on this very question that advocates the creation of a "safe harbor" to protect broadcasters from precisely this kind of situation. Titled " 'Fleeting Expletives' and Sports Broadcasts: A Legal Nightmare Needs a Safe Harbor," it appears in 18 Journal of Legal Aspects of Sports 175. I think this is the best way to solve this problem, even if the Supreme Court affirms the Second Circuit's invalidation of the rules.