Hog Calls

Canned noise takes away from true game atmosphere

Arkansas fans cheer before taking on Alabama Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018, at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville. Visit nwadg.com/photos to see more photographs from the game.
Arkansas fans cheer before taking on Alabama Saturday, Oct. 6, 2018, at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville. Visit nwadg.com/photos to see more photographs from the game.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Since perhaps mass hypnosis worked before, perhaps it can work again in reverse.

The hypnotized, it seems, are those college athletic department marketing directors and game management folks years ago en masse adopting the same ceaseless, mindless, eardrums-assaulting amplified noise for "atmosphere" at football and basketball games.

We have no mass hypnosis proof of course. But in today's world of ludicrously, far-fetched conspiracy theories who needs proof?

Besides is it just coincidence that the same stuff before kickoffs and during timeouts generically blares coast to coast?

It particularly strikes home this football season with those Arkansas fans doggedly attending in Fayetteville and the one game in Little Rock supporting these struggling Razorbacks reeling, 2-7 overall and 0-5 in the SEC.

They should be rewarded for their support. Instead it seems they are subjected to audio torture like rival regimes might use to crack POW's into divulging military secrets.

Since every SEC football game is televised, the being-there-among-the-cheering-crowd-as-part-of-the-game atmosphere is part of what every SEC school pitches to sell tickets.

How numbing the crowd with artificial noise that can drown a spontaneous Hog Call inspires atmosphere seems beyond comprehension.

The silly, not to mention rude, national fad seen at restaurants of folks allegedly lunching together yet all on cellphones texting isn't silly or rude at most college football and basketball games. It's about become a necessity. How else can you communicate with the person you came with? Particularly pregame when the amplified noise seems nonstop blaring loudest.

The pregame crowd electricity that you could feel and hear crackling before big football games in Fayetteville and Little Rock and basketball games at Walton Arena and Barnhill Arena before Walton seems lost in the generic, canned cacophony.

It's a parody, it seems, when a video display urges "louder" while drowning out the fans' noise with amplified noise of its own.

Opposing players who have come through Arkansas or anywhere else with legendary partisan crowds will tell you how intimidating the true roar of the crowd can be.

But canned noise? It's just noise, tuned out sounding the same whether 200 or 200,000 attend.

Admittedly, some will say this is the crotchety rant of a 68-year-old not understanding today's culture.

But as a teen in the 1960s attending and relishing a loud, instrument-bashing concert by The Who among other rock bands, it's not like this comes from a proponent of elevator Muzak.

Yet back then it never would have occurred to me that a football game and its marching bands should sound like a rock concert and certainly never just amplified noise for noise's sake.

Of course since we're on ludicrous conspiracy theories some could conjure this is all about selling skyboxes.

How enticing to buy a box with windows sealing off the assaulting noise.

Then you can kick back with a beverage and a sandwich and watch the game on TV. You know, like you do at home.

Sports on 10/31/2018

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