What Happens to Streakers and Pitch Invaders
By
Richard Janvrin
Contributor Updated: 06 June 2024
Richard Janvrin Contributor
Richard has been writing about sports since he was a teenager. Still, his first professional role came in 2015, covering all things NFL and fantasy football-related. From there, in December 2018, he started in the sports betting industry, covering sportsbook reviews before arriving to where he is today.
What Happens to Streakers and Pitch Invaders
Have you ever watched a game of any kind and a streaker or seen someone run onto a field, court, or pitch, get tackled and escorted out of the arena/stadium, and wondered, “What happens to streakers?” or “What’s the penalty for streaking?”
These are fair questions because something must happen to them otherwise, we’d get them far more often than we already do.
After all, it seems like all betting sites, have a prop for each Super Bowl in the NFL dedicated to whether or not it will happen.
Below, we’ll look more into “pitch invasion,” including whether there’s a penalty for streaking or, even worse, a punishment for streaking. We’ll use some recent examples, too.
Explaining What a Streaker and Pitch Invader Is
Before diving into recent examples of these individuals and the penalty for streaking, it’s important to understand this.
A streaker is often referenced as someone who runs onto the field, court, or pitch of a sporting event unclothed to interrupt the course of play. This is often done as a publicity stunt. When this happens, security chases the person down and removes them from the area of play. Some incidents have occurred where people have been tased to cease their antics. Of course, not everyone is fully unclothed.
The same definition applies to pitch invaders. Other terms for this act include field storming, rushing the field, rushing the court, and more.
With that out of the way, let’s examine some recent examples, review the punishment for streaking, and answer the question of what happens to pitch invaders.
- Kyle Filipowski Hurt, Caitlin Clark Hit, During Court Storming
- Steaker at Super Bowl 54
- Pitch Invader: Ben Jenkins, Optus Stadium
- State of Origin Streaker Wati Holmwood Faced Jail Time
- Kinsey Wolanski Sees Boom To Career After Pitch Invasion
- What Happens to Streakers and Pitch Invaders Wrap Up
Kyle Filipowski Hurt, Caitlin Clark Hit, During Court Storming
We wanted to start off with an incident that’s more of a grey area in the United States. In college sports, it’s commonplace for a horde of fans in attendance to rush the court or field after an upset win, and nothing seems to come of it.
However, this past NCAA basketball season, there were two incidents involving Duke Blue Devils star Kyle Filipowski and Iowa Hawkeyes women’s player Caitlin Clark that put this more into the crosshairs.
For Duke, after losing in an upset to Wake Forest, fans rushed the court, and as a result, Filipowski was seen injured and helped off the court. He didn’t miss any time, but it was certainly headline news.
“I felt a bunch of hits on my body,” Filipowski told Greensboro, North Carolina, CBS affiliate WFMY of the sequence that led to injuring his right knee. “This one was the worst of them. Like I said, it’s just really ridiculous how, you know, that situation’s handled. I’ve already heard that there (are) some videos of (me) getting punched in the back, so I absolutely feel like it was personal, intentional for sure. There’s no reason why they see a big guy like me trying to work my way off the court and can’t work their way around me. There’s no excuse for that.”
This caused the outrage of many pundits, including ESPN’s Jay Bilas, who suggested that fans caught in court storming should be cited and detained.
“If they wanted to stop it, they could stop it tomorrow,” Bilas said on Monday’s episode of First Take. “… One time, all you have to do is once they’re on the court, don’t let them off. Just say, ‘You’re all detained,’ and give them all citations or arrest them if you want to. Then, court stormings will stop the next day. There’s no accountability for this. The fans feel like it’s an entitlement, and the universities like it, and the truth is, [the media] like it.”
The incident with Filipowski came after Clark was involved in an upset loss to Ohio State, which involved a fan running directly into her and knocking her over.
As far as we know, nobody involved in these incidents was charged or penalized.
So, answering “What’s the punishment for streaking?” doesn’t really apply here because there was no single streaker to blame — it was a flood of fans storming the court. There seems to be a double standard where if it’s a single person, there are punishments levied, but if it’s a court storm after a big win, nothing happens besides possible injuries to players and those storming the court.
To be fair, the SEC has by-laws set for schools that the punishment for streaking, court storming, or whatever term you want to use is $50,000 on the first offense, $100,000 on the second, and $250,000 on the third. The schools are hit with this, though, not the people doing it.
Steaker at Super Bowl 54
In the waning minutes of the third quarter in Super Bowl 54 this past February, two streakers — or as broadcaster Tony Romo said, a “partial streaker” — hit the field.
“Oh, we’ve got people on the field,” said announcer Tony Romo.
“Oh my goodness, we do, we’ve got a streaker on the other …” Jim Nantz replied.
“Partial streaker,” Romo responded.
While Romo addressed just one, there were actually two, swearing sweatpants with a social media handle painted across their chest.
All we know is that the two were arrested, but there’s been no report of fines, jail time, or really what they were trying to promote.
Pitch Invader: Ben Jenkins, Optus Stadium
In 2018, 23-year-old Ben Jenkins was “egged on” by his friends during a cricket match with Australia and England to commit some pitch invasion. This helped shed some light on what happens to pitch invaders as he was fined $2,000. He could’ve faced one year in jail and a fine of up to $12,000.
He pleaded guilty to trespassing, and Magistrate Edward De Vries asked Jenkins if he’d “grow up” and called him a “show pony.”
State of Origin Streaker Wati Holmwood Faced Jail Time
While we’ve not listed anything all too severe just yet, State of Origin streaker Wati Holmwood is a reminder that the punishment for streaking can be a bit worse.
He was originally sentenced to three months in jail and hit with a $2,000 fine, but it was later reduced to two months in jail for breaching a bond after he was nude at a campsite in 2012.
The judge overseeing the case said that the imprisonment was appropriate due to Holmwood’s “poor compliance with conditional liberty in the past”.
So, what happens to streakers? Well, jail time is certainly possible.
Kinsey Wolanski Sees Boom To Career After Pitch Invasion
During the 2019 Champions League Final, Kinsey Wolanski committed a pitch invasion while wearing a one-piece black swimsuit that read “Vitaly Uncensored” on it to promote her boyfriend’s adult website. However, in the wake of that happening, she reportedly gained millions in online revenue and new followers.
She currently sits at three million followers on TikTok and 3.6 million on Instagram. So, no matter what fine she was hit with, her newfound wealth made it totally worth it.
What Happens to Streakers and Pitch Invaders Wrap Up
While there are numerous other high-profile incidents of streaking and pitch invasion, it’s safe to say that, overall, fans who do this are normally hit with small fines, and in the case of Wolanski, the upside for social media stardom is possible. Of course, the case with Holmwood serves as a reminder that jail time is possible.
While the punishment for streaking could be fines, stadium bans, or possible jail time, it appears that, more often than not, the punishment doesn’t often truly reach its maximum penalty, especially for a first-time pitch invasion.
It’s safe to say that if an event has a betting prop for whether there will be a streaker or not, take that bet. In fact, it’s not uncommon for people to place that bet and do it themselves to reap the rewards.
All that being said, we encourage you to sit in your seat and enjoy the game.
