While most Seattle Seahawks fans focus on winning expectations on the field, their screaming enthusiasm snagged them a first place win Sunday even before the scores were totaled: they entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the loudest fans in the world.
Yahoo Sports said fan screaming reached a 131.9 decibel level during the Sunday game against the 49ers, beating out a previous world record of 131.76 from an Instanbul soccer game.
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The insane loudness – the threshold for feeling pain from noise is 130 decibels – came in the second quarter when Michael Bennett sacked Colin Kaepernick, Yahoo said.
But the crazy hooting and hollering fans weren’t done yet. They went on to beat their own record with a 136.6 decibel moment in the third quarter.
“It’s a far louder, tribal kind of passion,” Yahoo quoted Guinness judge Phil Robertson as saying. “There’s passionate people in soccer, but here you see veins bulging out of necks.”
CBS Sports reported in July that the Seahawks would go for the Guinness world record for sheer painful noise in July. Obviously, everyone showed up ready to scream.
Comedian Bill Burr, who’s a Patriots fan, made fun of Seattle's 12th Man (a concept of the fans as a member of the team, a term trademarked by Texas A&M) putting out a podcast that said the fans are just average, but the architect who designed the stadium to be a “symphony hall” to enhance loud cheers is the one who should be congratulated, CBS Sports reported.
Not to put a damper on the Seahawks’ successful win on field and off, but loud stadiums actually aren’t a good idea for winning. Or for ears.
NBC News reported that there’s no scientific evidence to back up the “loud fans help teams win” theory. And the ears of everyone present take a hit. A medical professor and director of audiology at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center said such noise levels, even for 10 minutes at a time, accumulates over a lifetime and can damage hearing.
Another doctor recommended over-the-counter ear plugs.
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