I totally agree with this. The stadiums don’t let the game breathe at all. It’s basically like a baseball game which now plays a new 5 second clip of a song after every pitch. It’s dumb and annoying.

Agree. I dig the live organ at MSG, but the other stuff they play sucks. Also not a fan of the big booming voice at some arenas that yells “de-fense!” — that shit is the crowd’s job.

It’s to mask to lack of crowd noise. Or replace it. Take your pick

E/ this thread is hilarious.

EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS

They don’t let big moments breathe at all. It’s the last 90 seconds of a close game. Why are we still doing “EVERYBODY CLAP YO HANDS”

I always complain about this. It is incredibly obnoxious

Been saying this for years. Had seasons tickets to Raptors and it would just grate on me. It was fun at first but enough is enough…it’s like they treat everyone like babies who can’t deal with a little bit of silence. I do wonder if it’s to drown out obnoxious fans yelling obscenities and to make it more of a family environment.

They don’t want us to hear all the obscene things the players yell at each other lol

Pistons stadium is god awful at this

I dislike stadiums that have the DJ playing actual songs during play, but I do like the stadiums with live organs instead. It’s tradition, gets the players going, and isn’t too obnoxious— but of course I’m biased lol. 

I don’t know if I’m misremembering, but I distinctly remember in the 90s watching as a kid and you would only ever hear the “De-fense” rhythm when the home team was defending, and there would be no music at all when they were on offense. Music during play is an abomination.

OKC is the worst with this. That blaring siren they play when the visiting team has the ball is so dumb.

#YOU WILL CLAP YOUR HANDS AND LIKE IT!!!

Houston games are especially rough

Cause there’s no way to replicate the college atmosphere in American professional sports.

I haven’t been in forever, but the Clippers were the absolute worst because there was basically no crowd noise and the DJ thought it was the clerb and Clipper Darrel wouldn’t shut the fuck up and stop doing his shtick in his dirty ass suit.

The whole thing was so low rent and felt like you were at an inner city high school from one of those spoof movies like Dance Flick or something where the whole experience was just every terrible black stereotype thrown into a blender, but without any of the fun or camaraderie and half the crowd was white people who didn’t know what they were signing up for when they accepted the tickets given away to them for free.

Yes - the Magic’s arena was hell last year. It’s so obnoxious and I am apparently so old now.

Got to talking with a German tourist next to me at a Knicks preseason game about this. He asked me if this was normal at professional games. I said yes and he responded you don’t find it annoying.

And I said no and I explained, growing up and ballin’ in the city, it was normal thing at basketball courts and parks to have music blastin close by while playing. It was a cultural thing I said.

He acknowledged it as possible reason.

Yep, same problem with baseball in certain stadiums. They have to have music playing ALL the time and it’s so loud you can’t have conversations with people next to you

It’s so weird

I had never really noticed it until watching the spurs at rockets the other night. Agree it was unpleasant. I mainly watch heat games and have never noticed it to be a problem, at least for home games.

Some stadiums are worse than others, from memory Minnesota is pretty bad

Not just annoying but genuinely harmful. Multiple coaches with vocal cord damage from shouting over music (I lose my voice coaching youth sports on a quiet field, no idea how they do it at all). And I bet a shocking percentage of players will have hearing loss from being at concert-level volume every night.

This is so true

This is the only thing I dislike about going to Cavs games. I come out of it with hearing loss because the music is so fucking loud.

100% agree. They strobe all these lights in our faces, blaring disjointed music. I wish attending games was not such an assault on the senses. Believe it or not, I actually paid money to watch a basketball game, not get blasted at “da clurb”.

Dennis Rodman complained about this in his first book 30 years ago. I don’t imagine that he was the first or last player to find the environment around the game to be distracting and annoying either.

I have bad anxiety and the music drives me crazy. Haven’t gone to a game in 3 years I prefer it on tv

ITS SO FUCKING ANNOYING.

It feels like the producers typed “most annoying music ever made” and then used that song

Not disagreeing with OP necessarily, I just think it’s funny ironic Kerr specifically said that. Chase plays E40 during the games (and other Bay Area hip hop) and E40 is literally courtside. It’s like ‘Yo Steve, you trying to get into a rap battle?!!!’

I don’t notice it live as much as I do on television. And honestly, my irl experiences with games is that they’re quite a bit quieter than football, baseball, etc

Sound effects like Pablo Francisco every game

MSG does it right

Anything is better than those glass fucking bell chimes

It’s the players that like the music so much so doubt it changes.

Watching the Minnesota game rn and I haven’t heard any music all broadcast, it’s great

does anyone hate the NBA more than NBA fans?

I hate the music playing constantly. It absolutely ruins the live experience for me.

Great post. The incessant random noises and songs do absolutely nothing to enhance the game or the atmosphere or the ease of watching.

This is one of the many reasons why I enjoy watching euro league or NBL games. It is just raw basketball, no filler or fluff, wayyy fewer commercials, and the rules are conducive to a competitive play style. The NBA could benefit from some (if not all) of these things

i actually believe a lot of the people going to the games aren’t there to watch games. they go there for the club feel

I bring ear plugs when I go to a game. It’s just too loud and never ending noise.

It’s a non-stop assault like others have said no chance to breathe at all and actually enjoy the game. It’s constant chaos frankly it’s just too damn loud.

This actually bothers you all this bad?

The absurd music, usually a mix of organ riffs and hip hop, helps me come to terms with the fact that because of the officiating, the NBA is an exhibition and not a sport.  It’s a basketball performance. 

Dog whistle thread