Fans of the Seattle Seahawks collectively call themselves the 12th Man, an extra player with a noise level so pounding at their home stadium that seismologists have recorded minor earthquakes during big plays.
Fans of the Denver Broncos have a long reputation for noise that rattles visiting opponents, too, including a tradition of stamping their feet to create a rumbling called Rocky Mountain Thunder.
Both franchises used the high-decibel help of their hometown crowds to help win conference championship games Sunday. But when their teams meet in the Super Bowl on Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Seattle’s 12th Man and Denver’s Rocky Mountain Thunder will be mere echoes from distant time zones.
The Super Bowl is where the National Football League’s famed fan noise goes to die. What the hundreds of millions of viewers around the world may not realize, from the comfort of couches in front of big-screen televisions with the volume turned high, is just how strangely quiet it can be at a Super Bowl game.
“There’s not a lot of crowd noise,” said Ron Jaworski, an ESPN analyst who was the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles when they reached the Super Bowl at the end of the 1980 season. “People mostly sit on their hands, outside of the fans that buy the tickets for the team. It’s kind of a corporate get-together.” (...)
“It takes on the atmosphere of a game being played on a Hollywood soundstage,” the CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz said.
The broadcaster Al Michaels has covered eight Super Bowls. The loudest he can recall was Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, Fla., where Pittsburgh fans far outnumbered those of the Arizona Cardinals as the Steelers won with a last-minute touchdown pass.
“Even then, you probably had half the fans there as neutral observers,” Michaels said. “I can’t think of a time where it would ever sound like it would sound in any other venue.”
He added: “If the game is not very good, there is nothing. It might as well be played out in a park.
Fans of the Denver Broncos have a long reputation for noise that rattles visiting opponents, too, including a tradition of stamping their feet to create a rumbling called Rocky Mountain Thunder.Both franchises used the high-decibel help of their hometown crowds to help win conference championship games Sunday. But when their teams meet in the Super Bowl on Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Seattle’s 12th Man and Denver’s Rocky Mountain Thunder will be mere echoes from distant time zones.
The Super Bowl is where the National Football League’s famed fan noise goes to die. What the hundreds of millions of viewers around the world may not realize, from the comfort of couches in front of big-screen televisions with the volume turned high, is just how strangely quiet it can be at a Super Bowl game.
“There’s not a lot of crowd noise,” said Ron Jaworski, an ESPN analyst who was the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles when they reached the Super Bowl at the end of the 1980 season. “People mostly sit on their hands, outside of the fans that buy the tickets for the team. It’s kind of a corporate get-together.” (...)
“It takes on the atmosphere of a game being played on a Hollywood soundstage,” the CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz said.
The broadcaster Al Michaels has covered eight Super Bowls. The loudest he can recall was Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, Fla., where Pittsburgh fans far outnumbered those of the Arizona Cardinals as the Steelers won with a last-minute touchdown pass.
“Even then, you probably had half the fans there as neutral observers,” Michaels said. “I can’t think of a time where it would ever sound like it would sound in any other venue.”
He added: “If the game is not very good, there is nothing. It might as well be played out in a park.
by John Branch, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
somewhere.”
