OT: Stadium noise

[GratefulDawg.sixpack]

Just read this article in the NY Times about the use of canned noise and constant blaring music during NBA and other professional games. I hate the NBA, and one of the main reasons why it turned me off was I got tired of hearing the stupid tricks that home arenas would use to "pump up" the fans. I know we used the same b.s. music that everyone else does at the Hump, and I love seeing how most people don't interact with it. I haven't been to a home game at DWS since 2005, but I know that they've improved the game-time "experience" quite a bit since then. Is this being done at DWS too?<div>
</div><div>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/sports/basketball/stoking-fans-excitement-arenas-pump-up-the-volume.html</div><div>
</div><div><div class="articleBody" style="margin-top: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.7em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">DALLAS — It was only the pregame show. As the ear-splitting cacophony rocked American Airlines Center before a recentDallas Mavericksplayoff game, the team executive Martin Woodall whooped gleefully over the din: “My clothes are shaking!” His words were discernible only to a lip reader; their sound stood no chance.</p></div><div class="articleBody" style="margin-top: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.7em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">At sporting events across the nation, and in the N.B.A. in particular, noise has become a part of the show — rarely more so than in Dallas, where the Mavericks face the Miami Heat in Game 4 of the N.B.A. finals Tuesday night. It is hard to tell if the Mavericks’ favorite machine during these playoffs is Dirk Nowitzki, their star player, or their sound system.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">The Mavericks’ equipment involves more than simply pumping up decibels to levels that some experts fear could contribute to long-term hearing loss, although science is not solid on the extent. Rather, with fans spoiled by earbud fidelity and 5.1-channel home theater systems, owners like the Mavericks’ Mark Cuban have turned hosting a game into producing an event — with “assisted resonance” and “crowd enhancement” buzzwords for some and euphemisms for others.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Sixty monstrous speakers thunder music and clamorous sound effects at decibel levels higher than a jumbo jet engine’s. More speakers above the oval seating bowl replicate a roaring herd of horses in perfectly timed surround sound.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">After the recent playoff game, against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference finals, began, microphones in the backboard amplified rim clangs, sneaker squeaks and the occasional profanity, while devices dangling above the crowd — in the rare instances when the public-address system was not active — could redirect courtside crowd sounds into the distant upper mezzanine.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">“It’s way better than old school — everyone’s getting into the game,” Mark Busbee, a 40-year-old Mavericks season-ticket holder, said during the second quarter of Game 5 of the Mavericks-Thunder series. “It’s a new era, a new age — why not leverage the technology that’s here today? It’s never too loud. If you don’t like it, watch the game at home.”</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">The Mavericks have received the occasional complaint about the noise levels, which spend most two-hour games at decibel levels between a power mower’s 90 and a chain saw’s 110. (The Occupational Safety and Health Administration considers 115 decibels for any time period to be dangerous.) Eventually, the only thing that speaks consistently louder than public-address systems is the attendance figures they help create.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Few seem to be boycotting games just because, as in Game 5, 97-decibel rock was played during timeouts, “Jack and Diane” by John Mellencamp inexplicably accompanied DeShawn Stevenson dribbling upcourt, and a potentially placid halftime was filled with a thumping drum band and other histrionics. Even when a hairdo-guessing contest led its hostess to screech “Yeaaaahhh!” at 105 decibels — high-pitched sounds in that range can be particularly noisome to human ears — the crowd got only louder to compensate.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">“I’ve been here 27 years — when I started we said nothing except maybe, ‘Basket by Rolando Blackman,’” said Steve Letson, who coordinates Dallas’s audio and visual presentations from courtside. “We don’t know for sure, but they seem to respond to it. The more they respond, the more we respond.”</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Sports fans have long used their vocal cords, Thunderstix and, as in last year’s World Cup, vuvuzelas to cheer the home team and rattle the visitors. Noisy crowds can be especially helpful to the hosts in football, where loud cheering can throw off players’ timing because they cannot hear the snap count, sometimes leading to a 5-yard penalty.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Decibel levels are like pitch speeds, with scoreboards clearly inflating them for effect; at a recent Mets game, while a video board exhorted fans to “Make Some Noise!” a faux decibel meter pushed a ludicrous 120 (only about 10,000 fans were even at Citi Field). Then there were the Nets of the late 1990s, who were so dreadful and jealous of other teams’ home mayhem thatthey pumped fake crowd noise through their loudspeakers.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Poetically, the proliferation of luxury suites — into which patrons often take cover from the noise — has put greater emphasis on the size and clarity of sports sound systems. Rings of spiffy mezzanines force conventional seating rows to reach far higher and farther from game action. For example, the Chicago Bulls’ former home could fit inside United Center, which opened in 1994, said Jack Wrightson, the primary acoustic engineer for that arena and Dallas’s American Airlines Center. Volume affects volume.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px; "></span></p><div class="articleBody" style="margin-top: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.7em; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">“All of the owners are interested in crowd noise,” said Wrightson, who redesigned Dallas’s system two years ago to accompany Cuban’s new $14 million video boards. “But the size of the buildings today makes that a real problem you have to solve. The large interior volume creates the potential for echoes and reverberation, which you don’t want at a sporting event or a concert. The arena speakers have to be properly timed, and insulation installed throughout the building, to compensate.”</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">
</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Some echoes can last longer than the game itself, some experts fear, in the form of tinnitus — ringing in the ears for up to 12 to 24 hours — or, more slowly and stealthily, long-term hearing loss. William Martin, a professor of otolaryngology at Oregon Health and Science University, said that OSHA’s 115-decibel limit derived from economic considerations, not just medical ones, and that sports arenas presented a distinct risk, particularly to children.</p></div><div class="articleBody" style="margin-top: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.7em; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">“Ears are extremely sensitive devices — they’re designed for when you’re walking in the woods and you hear a twig break, signaling that the bear that ate your friend last week is close,” said Martin, who has worn earplugs at many Trail Blazers games at the Rose Garden in Portland, one of the loudest arenas in the N.B.A. because of its low roof.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">“There are subtle but gradual consequences of bombarding your ears,” he added. “There’s good solid research saying that children, young children, have hearing loss that can be attributed to noise exposure. The basketball, and sports arenas in general, are a very real subset of the problem.”</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Mark Stephenson, a senior research audiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a division of the Centers for Disease Control, said that one or two nights at a loud sporting event were probably benign. People who attend dozens of games — and perhaps the athletes themselves — could be at risk, he said.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">“We can’t assess minor damage until there’s hearing loss later in life,” Stephenson said. “It’s a real issue.”</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">It did not appear to be for the 21,092 jubilant Mavericks fans in the final game against Oklahoma City, in which Dallas came from behind to pull out a victory. In the corner seats near courtside, the resultant delirium peaked at 112 decibels and spent more than a minute over 95.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">It did not exceed OSHA’s 115 — until the final seconds, that is.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">Dallas’s increasingly excited crowd pushed the meter to 113, then 114, and then, for one brief moment, past 115 and the officially, undeniably, dangerous level. For Lonnie Franklin, a longtime fan doing more than his share, it was aural ambrosia.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">“You shouldn’t be able to think at times like this!” he shouted as fans around him stormed the court. “It’s well worth it!”</p></div>

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[Irondawg]

Because of all the flippant music playing during the game - I go to a game to watch basketball, not to see how loud a arena's speakers can go.

 

[Mullenation]

Because most people spending high dollar for NBA tickets want a great experience to go along with great basketball.

 

[Irondawg]

i don't go...but do you consider a great experience listening to Rhianna and Flo Rider while Chris Paul dribbles he ball up the court. I don't mind the stuff during timeouts/halftime, etc. I just hate to be in stimulus overload while trying to watch the actual game.

I personally think a great experience is a great crowd cheering and being into the game and always remembers moments from the actual great games.

The reason the NBA has to pump in all that music is because most of the arenas are half full most nights and the crowds aren't real vocal. Everyone has their own opinion though and I know the Mavs actually did a game a few years ago with no music pumped in and most fans responded to survey saying they didn't like it.

 

[OneNationUnderDog]

I don't think that NBA games are programmed for most of us on this board...

... middle-aged white guys.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

The fans they are targeting like the music they listen to outside the stadium to be played inside the stadium.

 

[Dawgzilla]

[No message]

 

[ckDOG]

I have no reference point other than Grizz games, but the music and other stuff they pump in doesn't bother me. Sometimes I like it. Other times I tune it out. I understand why they are doing it - it's just to make it a more entertaining experience.

That said, I'd never want that atmosphere in college. I enjoy hearing the band and local advertisements during timeouts and the traditional MSU chants and cheers. It's part of experiencing MSU athletics and bringing back fond memories. I don't have that sort of connection with professional sports, so it really doesn't bother me that I have to hear Jay-Z and AC/DC 50 times a game along with the occasional firework or streamer...

 

[FlabLoser]

The reason the NBA has to pump in all that music is because most of the arenas are half full most nights and the crowds aren't real vocal. Everyone has their own opinion though and I know the Mavs actually did a game a few years ago with no music pumped in and most fans responded to survey saying they didn't like it.

Take it from someone who attended pro sports events in Dallas at Reunion Arena and then at American Airlines Center which replaced Reunion.

The modern arenas are large and spacious - for the inclusion of as many suites as possible. All those mid-level suites, and spacious club level seats end up putting all the rest of the fans a hell of a lot farther away than they otherwise would be.

Reunion Arena was deafening with no fake crowd noise or music at all. Just 17,000 fans with no suites. Think a larger version of The Hump.

Then the American Airlines Center comes along. It seats just 1,500 more people than Reunion did. But the AAC is large enough that Reunion could fit inside of it. The AAC is a lot bigger, the ceiling is a lot higher. Fans are a lot farther away from the action.

Sound levels decrease exponentially with distance.

So to have any level of excitement or intimidation, the NBA arenas have no choice but to pump in hype through arena speakers.

To the OP - no, this doesn't happen at DWS. They play music and stuff during timeouts. But in-game, they play nothing. Rules prohibit it.

 

[LightninInside]

But i KNOW that I am in the majority at the game. The music coming from the Jumbotron is awesome!! The louder the better in my opinion. It gets everyone fired up and screaming jumping up and down shaking the upper deck until you think its going to collapse. Man, that Arkansas game last year was a prime example of the music pumping up the crowd.

The band is great too especially with the go state chant, but I like that when the game is actually in progress.

Also - No offense, but you have to be one strange cat to want to listen to commercials during time outs than the music.

 

[ckDOG]

I wouldn't change anything about the football atmosphere. We spent millions on the jumbotron and PA - we might as well use it for what it was designed for and crank that ***** up.

 

[jakldawg]

and not a "rapidly agingLuddite-in-training" but I prefer sporting events to be sporting events and less "spectacle". I don't need some homer PA guy going "MAKE SOME NOOOIIIIISE" following a timeout or "TIMEOUT GRRRRRIZZZZZLIIIIIES" followed by the hook to a rap song going into one. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about a loud,colorfulmulti-media spectacle at something like a concert or even pre-game introductions, and I'm glad that State's figured out how to enhance the atmosphere at games, but things can be over-done. Of course, they guy who made his fortune with RealAudio would be taking this to the extreme. And are people really fooled into thinking they're part of the action by having court noise piped into the nosebleed sections? That was actually the saddest part of the story. Actually, that might bepreferableto watching at home and having every sporting event turned into a 3-hour commercial for some ****** movie or TV show.

 

[LightninInside]

Now thats what I'm talkin about. I've been going to DWS for over 20 years and I can say that we have the gameday experience down pat. The Junction, seating (or lack thereof because of sell outs) the Jumbotron and the Mullen is making MSU Football THE place to be on Saturday's in the fall.

When was the last time that any of you have been to a game at any other stadium in MS? They have fallen so far behind that I don't think they will ever catch up.

Edited to add: I know this started as basketball and I took some of your opinions to apply to football. My apologies.
Our basketball experience is pretty good right now. To me it all depends on crowd size. When it is packed y'all rock the place like no other. On TV it is amazing to see the white outs and how loud it can get in there.

 

[Irondawg]

I'll add this - for basketball if you're in a suite I doubt how much of a fan you really are. Basketball is a sport were the game is much more enjoyable the closer your are. I'd much rather sit in row 25 than in a Suite.

Did a few games in Staples Center suites and had to watch the TV to get any feel for what was going on. I was so far away from the action.

Footbal is different as being up high can let you see the whole field better.

Bah humbug