What makes a sports stadium loud?

As student of Penn State, a lot of us have had the opportunity to be apart of the crazy Beaver Stadium atmosphere on Saturday afternoon/nights. Penn State is consistently rated one of the best student sections in the country, partly because of the noise that Penn State students are able to create. The players feed off the noise, the other teams struggle because of it, and the noise makes Happy Valley an unforgettable football experience. What if I told you that Beaver Stadium is able to be one of the loudest stadiums in the country without being built to do so? Sports Stadiums today are now being built with the idea of being as loud as humanely possible.

One of the biggest things Stadiums are now doing to create as much noise are possible is they are building the stadium with a smaller design in mind. You may think bigger is better, right? Unfortunately, you are wrong. You may not be able to see it, but sound travels. Because sound loses energy as it travels, the key is for stadiums to be as small as possible. What stadiums are now doing is they are “trapping” the fan noise inside the stadium. The stadiums are now being built with sides that “turn back” the crowd noise back onto the field.

Levi Stadium is the perfect example of this. Levi stadium the new home of the NFL’s San Francisco Forty Niners. Levi stadium was built tight and compact with sides that turn back, with the hope that the extra boost in crowd noise could give the home team an extra advantage.

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The “poster boy” for stadium loudness is CenturyLink Stadium in Seattle, Washington home of the Seattle Seahawks. CenturyLink Stadium is the loudest stadium in the world, as it broke the Guinness World Record of producing the highest ever peak decibel level of 136.6 dB. The constant loud noise seems to give the Seahawks a major advantage, as the Seahawks have lost only two home games in the last four years. What gives the Seahawks the ultimate advantage? Two huge canopies hang down the sides of the stadium, covering almost 70% of the stadium, can be pointed to as the major cause for the stadium noise. With the sides taking a parabolic shape, as sound travels, the parabolic shape turns the sound waves straight back onto the field, making it extremely loud.

Another factor that affects stadium noise is the materials the stadium is made of. CenturyLink stadium is constructed of mainly metal and concrete. The metal and concrete basically act as a mirror or a sound reflector, and can help keep sound within the stadium and direct it toward

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Obviously, stadiums are only as good as the fans inside of them. They are the biggest third variable involved in stadium crowd noise. You can use all the science in the world to develop the loudest stadium in the world, however if you don’t have a supportive, loud crowd within the stadium, the stadium design is entirely useless

In conclusion, newer stadiums are using science in order to gain the biggest home field advantage possible. Team owners are having stadiums built with science being used in order to create the loudest atmosphere possible. However, like I mentioned earlier, all that science is useless if a lively crowd is not inside the stadium

2 thoughts on “What makes a sports stadium loud?

  1. Katie Ann Farnan

    This was a very interesting post to read! I think all of us (at least those of us who are football fans) have experienced the loud roar and shake of Beaver Stadium and can agree that there is nothing like it. I think it is interesting that stadiums are now being designed to foster that noise and make it even louder. Great post!

  2. Kristen

    This post was so interesting. I’d agree that one of the biggest factors with making a live game interesting and giving the home team an advantage is the noise and enthusiasm of the fans. This leads me to wonder how effective the smaller stadiums are and whether or not they actually make a huge difference in the overall loudness. Since these stadiums are constructed smaller, I’d imagine they seat less people, so my question is whether or not the larger stadium with more fans would be louder than the smaller stadium that’s constructed to be loud. I also heard about the Seahawks having the loudest fans so I attached the video of them breaking that record:

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