Pitch invasion

A pitch invasion (known as a field invasion, rushing the field or storming the field in the United States) occurs when an individual or a crowd of people watching a sporting event run onto the playing area to celebrate or protest an incident. Pitch invasions may involve individual people or capacity crowds.

American football

This is especially common in college football and high school football when a team pulls off a major upset, defeats a major rival, ends a long losing streak or notches a history-making win. Many schools employ riot police to physically prevent fans from rushing the field, a controversy in and of itself. However, with the widespread advent of artificial turf such as FieldTurf, some schools are becoming more lax about students invading the pitch. In the last few years, goal posts are also taken down within moments of the end of the game as a cautionary measure to prevent fans from climbing atop them to cause damage to the standard holding them up, damage to television camera equipment on the posts, and spectator injury. In the National Football League, storming the field usually results in lifetime revocation of season tickets from the holder of them, even if given or sold to another person.