If I were an NFL player on the field during a game, how loud is the crowd noise?
I don’t really know the answer to that but I do know that it doesn’t get so loud that they can’t hear the referee’s whistle. So maybe the question should be, what is it about a referrer’s whistle that can pierce crowd noise and be heard? The little doohiggy is very small and is set off from human lung power, yet can be heard in a stadium filled with 100,000 screaming fans.
Maybe that’s a hijack of the tread but OTOH maybe that is the real question. Players can block out crowd noise but they can hear the referees whistle.
I’ve seen unofficial numbers in the 120-130 dB range for a football stadium, but I’m not sure if that’s measured from the field level or in the crowd. I’m guessing the latter. From watching the sport, it’s clearly loud enough to make it difficult to hear team mates prior to the snap! ~120dB is the threshold of pain for most people.
Somewhat related, I’ve seen 135dB reported in a hockey arena.
I’m pretty sure it’s because the frequency of the whistle is not in the spectrum of crowd noise.
Not as loud as rock concerts or car races in my experience.
I don’t have a formal measurement, but when sitting down near field level in a packed indoor stadium & the crowd is trying to make serious noise, you have to shout to speak with the person sitting next to you.
At my alma mater’s basketball arena, the Thunderdome, we had a decibel meter which I think would hit something like 109. It’s a small college venue that seats 6000.
Interestingly enough, this article states that the Timberwolves’ “Thunderdome” also hit 109.
I find mnemosyne’s claims of 130-135dB to be unbelievable unless you are sitting next to some dude sticking a trumpet in your ear. Granted UCSB’s Thunderdome numbers were in the early 1990’s and god knows what numbers vuvuzelas produce at a soccer game. Actually I looked it up:
That said, it would certainly depend on where the microphone on the decibel meter was set up.
I’ve been in domed stadiums for NFL games at the Metrodome, the Superdome, and the Georgia Dome. It gets so loud that you can’t hear a person standing next to you. I’ve seen published claims of decibel levels measured in the 115-125 range for each.
Moved from General Questions to the Game Room
samclem, Moderator
There’s not going to be any one answer because it depends on the physical characteristics of the stadium.
110 db would be a very, very, very loud crowd. 130 db is probably impossible for a crowd of human beings to generate without amplification.
I remember the 1987 World Series in the Minnesota Metrodome, where the noise level was known to be very loud. The TV people decided to have a decibel meter there to show how loud it got. When Kent Hrbek hit a grand slam, the decibel meter broke.
I may have a few of the details wrong, but the general idea is valid.
[Edit]A quick check of wiki claims that peak at the Metrodome was 125 in 1987.
The players are nearer to the whistle.
Even then, there are plenty of examples of players claiming to have not been able to hear the whistle. One example is when a player in football/soccer is through on goal but is flagged offside. If they shoot after the whistle (give or take an allowed small gap) then it is a yellow card offence for time wasting. A common argument for players doing this is an inability to hear the whistle.
It’s not the greatest cite, but youtube capture of an ESPN stat shot lists the four loudest college football stadiums on record. They are:
Husky Stadium '92: 133.6 db
Memorial Stadium '07: 132.8 db
Tiger Stadium '07: 130.0 db
Autzen Stadium '07: 127.7 db
Wikipedia seems to back that up, so yes, it is absolutely possible for a crowd to top 130 decibels, which is beyond the threshold of pain.
I took the 135 dB number from a remembered news story and the wikipedia article about the Bell Centre in Montreal which says “Noise levels in the arena allegedly reached as high as 135 dB when goals were scored by the Canadiens, most notably, during the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, during game #6 against the Pittsburgh Penguins on May 10, 2010,[14] making it one of the loudest NHL arenas during hockey games.”
The news article it’s citing is in French - the measurement may have been made with an unofficial meter like an iPod or something; it doesn’t specify. If random comments in HFBoardsare a cite, it seems it may have been the in-house decibel meter, which had previously measured a Slayer concert as the loudest event in the arena. This one says 132.
Just this season, TSN was showing a decibel meter during the pre-game at one of the CFL stadiums; I’m tempted to say it was either Canad-Inns in Winnipeg or Percival Molson in Montreal but I’m not sure (the latter is smaller and more closed in, which would make it louder, I think). The meter was showing numbers up around 122dB.
When I took my young son to Detroit Lion games in the Silverdome, he was bothered by the loudness. It was obviously uncomfortable for him. Domes of course are worse. The Silverdome held 80,000 plus . It got loud. If they had good teams ,it might have gotten louder.