Stadium noise is not the same thing as an engaged crowd.
On Monday, The Baltimore Banner published an article about attempts to create a different atmosphere at Oriole Park at Camden Yards this year. This was, according to the Banner’s Danielle Allentuck, sparked by a league-level visitor last June who gave the stadium entertainment experience a failing grade, and further refined after meetings with players provided feedback about what they think is missing.
With the Banner article in my mind, I sat in the stands on Monday night, one of the scheduled games on the 13-game season ticket plan that my wife and I have. This was not a big crowd, with a reported attendance of 13,629. Not surprisingly, the overall play of the Orioles this season, specifically coming off of a road trip full of setbacks, did not inspire much in the way of advance sales, and what ended up being a 100 degree game time temperature surely didn’t help with walkup sales either.
Crowd size is not always equal to excitement level. I think every regular, longtime Orioles game attendee has experienced small, feisty crowds in years where the team has no hope of achieving anything good, and probably larger, not as engaged crowds in the middle of decent or even great seasons.
Apparently, that latter thing is what MLB’s visitor experienced last June against the Phillies. I’d be curious to know exactly what they were judging, because I was at the Sunday game of that series (Father’s Day), a sellout that had a highly-engaged crowd for an exciting Orioles win that saw the team hit four home runs. The energy level was constant, and it was occasionally punctuated by the roaring of jet engines from a Fleet Week air show over the Inner Harbor nearby.
From The Banner’s report:
The players also noted that sometimes the crowd loses its momentum during a pitching change or break in the action, so they now have prompts such as “make some noise” or put a noise meter on the scoreboard during these times. Although they’ve had these in the past, the timing is being carefully plotted now.
There is a further note that the team is doing some experimenting over the course of this season, in hopes of finding a better rhythm for next year, when there is going to be a new video board as well as an upgraded stadium-wide sound system. It is encouraging to know that this is an experimental phase because I’d give them a failing grade of my own for my recent experience at the stadium.
On Monday night, I observed very little evidence to suggest there was any “carefully plotted” timing of particular scoreboard prompts. This is something that I think the team was already pretty good at doing in the past, sometimes filling idle moments with organ sounds to the tune of, “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands,” or the recognizable riff of the Green Acres theme song, or The Addams Family. They also judiciously deployed “Make some noise”-style screen prompts.
People know when to clap. Play the charge horn, and they know when to shout charge. If the scoreboard puts up “Let’s Go O’s” and there are a few drum beats to get people started, they know what to do with that, too. They’re ready to do it. This was not broken and, while there’s always room for improvement for anything, and space to mix some new prompts into the rotation, I don’t think that whatever process generated the array of stadium noise for that game was a positive compared to what has come before.
What happened much more often was just random music played that filled up moments after players fouled off a pitch and there was extra time before the pitcher got a new ball and came set again. There is a basic problem with this: Noise does not equal excitement.
The Banner’s article quotes new chief marketing officer Mark Fine who, at least based on his concluding comment, seems to view the challenge as playing the right music, as he said, “It’s hard in a 43,000-seat ballpark to play music that everybody wants to hear.” While there’s no question this is a true statement, it’s also missing the point. When you play music, you’re mostly not engaging the crowd. If people wanted to cheer or chant, they’re being drowned out. Nothing got started in those moments.
There are exceptions to what I just said about music. I don’t want to seem like I’m a grump who hates all music that is played at the stadium. We’re a month away from the 30 year anniversary of the first Jock Jams CD. Stadium music does not need to be stuck in that era just because it’s what people my age grew up with at Camden Yards. I think music has its place in keeping the crowd engaged, and I accept that I’m an old person now and it’s not my taste that is being catered to. The right catchy song engages all generations.
Gunnar Henderson’s walkup music, for instance, is something where people have fun reacting by adding their own “Whee-oooh!” to Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape. One between innings segment on Monday was a “Karaoke Cam,” which showed lyrics to Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off to encourage fans who were put on the Jumbotron to sing along. Things like these carry over and keep people buzzing rather than retreating to their phones between innings.
Another reason why I think the focus on music is misguided is that, to some degree, feeling like the scoreboard or sound system are necessary to prompt fans into engagement is a failure from the get-go. You can’t make people excited. They either are, or they aren’t, and it is most likely the case that what is happening in the game is why people are or aren’t excited. In the past two postseasons, Camden Yards crowds were ready to absolutely erupt. It’s just that the Orioles gave us pretty much nothing.
What can be done is a better job of harnessing what excitement there is. Ideally, that’s where judicious scoreboard prompts or PA sounds would help, rather than music squashing the energy. This kind of thing also used to be the part of the province of the Oriole Bird, who is probably in your memory appearing at random areas of the stadium throughout the game to get people excited, maybe spelling out O-R-I-O-L-E-S, maybe just generally making noise.
This is not the Oriole Bird’s function any more. Like so many other things that used to be free or cheaper in life, time with the Bird has been commodified and locked away from the general public. Season ticket members can use their Birdland Member points to request an in-seat visit from the Oriole Bird. He pops up, drops off a bag of goodies, and leaves, presumably to find the next person who used points.
Other than this, the only times you see the Bird now are a bit before the game, and on top of the Orioles dugout during the seventh inning stretch. He might linger for the bottom of the seventh. This didn’t happen on Monday, but I assume that was a heat-related choice rather than an aesthetic one. Then he disappears and you won’t see him again until the game is over.
It did not used to be this way. The Bird could show up anywhere and get into any kind of antics, and usually, wherever he went, crowd noise followed. If the Bird got enough nearby people going, you could engage more of the stadium. Something was lost in diminishing the Bird’s presence during games. This could easily be regained. All they have to do is set the Bird free again.
Over time, perhaps Mr. Splash could grow into this kind of function. Now patrolling two sections, he is frequently exhorting those in his space to get cheers going. I think the easiest way for cheers to get going is if a real person (possibly in a silly costume) is getting them going. The more, the merrier.
In a similar vein, games in recent seasons often have an “in-game host” whose job is usually to try to introduce each little Jumbotron cam or game or what have you. Sometimes he tries to start cheers between innings. I’ve been unimpressed by this initiative overall, through no fault of the person doing that job. I do wonder if the improved stadium sound coming next year will help this guy actually be heard clearly and then maybe people will respond to him.
I’m not a high-paid consulting firm, so they’re probably not going to ask me what I think. That said, I hope as the Orioles take stock of what they say is a season of experimentation, that they will prioritize real engagement by fans as their measure of success rather than the amount of empty, noisy spectacle that they can play across the soon-to-be-upgraded sound system.