As one who has the privilege of attending Razorback football and basketball games at home in Fayetteville, other home facilities in state, and bowl and tournament games across the country, I could not agree more with Nate Allen’s column on artificial noise at Razorback Sporting venues. Hog calls replaced by rap and techno music at ear splitting level just does not work for me. The electric feel of a hair standing Whoo Pig Sooie cheer is our battle cry. From the final four to top tier bowl games, nothing excites and unifies fans like a Hog Call. The Arkansas — Razorback cheer, Go Hogs Go, the Band playing the Fight Song, the unveiling of the Arkansas flag. William Tell at basketballl games are great traditional cheers that set the fans into a loud, fear inducing roar.
Call me old fashioned, but nothing anywhere can compete with calling the Hogs. It gives us a great home game edge, startles and intimidates on the road and it is our unique cheer. Save the loud recorded music for something else. Traditional Razorback cheers and fight songs make the hair on your neck stand up and inspire you to cheer all game long. WPS.
Nate was a get-off-my-lawn guy when I met him 40 years ago. I see nothing has changed. (So was Mike Irwin, double ditto on him). As always, and as Dudley will attest, it’s a balancing act. Old fans don’t like change. But you risk turning off new fans (and recruits) if you don’t adapt to the times. I’ll be gone in 15-20 years, whatever, but if you lose the 25-year-old alum now because he doesn’t connect with the old-style atmosphere, you may never get him back. Never mind the 18-year-old LB.
In addition, I think people have an inaccurate perception/memory of just how often we’d call the Hogs in the “glory days”. Once a quarter, if that. Certainly not during every time out.
Correct, we do it 4-6 times a game, including the one to get the team out on to the field. In certain situations, we might call them a couple of times more in the 4th quarter of a tight game. It seems we call them more at basketball games, and always have.
I’m 60, with 3 kids that will be graduates of the UofA, I doubt more than 1 will keep the season tickets after I get too old. One lives in Chicago, one will live in SF or NYC after graduating in the spring, #3 might keep them.
What’s happening now is that some are buying the tickets, but not using them. That didn’t seem possible until the last 10 years. But now I know many who are more comfortable in their homes, even when they have purchased tickets. I know that the folks who have purchased the new north end zone tickets are using all of them. Empty seats that I know are sold are in evidence.
Also, I know many fans who no longer have season tickets, but pick out a few games to buy on-line at stub hub or whatever else is out there. They may go to a road game, too. They don’t mind spending big bucks to go, even though they don’t have season tickets.
I heard that predicted about 10 years ago when Long began to raise the prices of everything. OK, some of my friends said, I’ll go to some games, but I’m not buying season tickets.
I’m writing this to conclude that not one of them really objected to the music on the loud speakers, or the lack of Hog calls. They just decided to spend their money differently when the prices jumped. I think that’s still happening.
Good points all — but there’s too much canned and artificial music. I’m not saying eliminate it, but college football is about the college band playing music, and the crowd engaging in ancient yells.
i think right now, there are’t any folks at the games, and there’s not much to cheer…so if you don’t have artificial and canned music, it might be very quiet — and I suspect some anemic hog calls.
Nobody objects to fun music. They need to play some fun music.
I sit in row 34 in the middle of the field on the east side. The music is so freakin’ loud it hurts your ears. You can’t hear yourself think, whatever that means.
And don’t give me that you’re old. I love music and have been to see Eric Clapton, Steely Dan and many others in concert, but whatever they are playing is crazy loud.
I was there the game when the “Arkansas…Razorbacks” cheer started in Little Rock at War Memorial. It started because the cheerleaders wouldn’t get off their butts and call the Hogs. The fans made up that cheer. That is a fact.
We had our highest season ticket sales right after Long raised the prices, to the bottom tier of the conference. Why was this so, because we were coming off of a 21-5 run. People will come to support a winner, otherwise you’ll get the 40,000 +or- season ticket holders. Do I think it will go back to the old way of doing it, doubtful, but I suspect season tickets will stay in the same range +or- 2/3%
But take out the so called “canned music” and other things designed to bring a pop and you’ll have even less at the game and you certainly won’t be having a No. 12 recruiting class.
Arkansas does not have a bad fan base. But to act like it has a great one is wrong as well.
I’m 58 and I don’t have a problem with the music. Some of the stuff they play while the players are warming up is not my thing, but it really does not bother me.
Clay is right about people not using their tickets. I sit in West Side Pig Heaven in the upper deck, and I know what was available last spring because I actually moved over a little bit to the best available in Pig Heaven. No one has shown up all year for the two seats beside us. That’s great for an old fat guy with bad knees like me, but it does prove the point.
Same thing is true for the west side lower bowl. I get a great look down into those seats, and there are always some empty spaces, and on many days lots of empty spaces. All those tickets get sold, but some folks just don’t make it for whatever reason.
And some folks don’t stay that long who do show up. I walked out to the upper deck concourse during the Tulsa game, and a surprising number of people were leaving at halftime.
All of which goes to show that there are a lot of fans out there that have the money to buy season tickets but don’t feel compelled to treat attending the games as an essential part of their fandom.
One thing to note, I bet there are a lot of season ticket holders like me that live out of town and simply can’t afford to go to every game. So they (we) cherry-pick. I still have family in the area, so generally my other game tickets get used. But for some games, like last week, I can’t even give my ($190 a seat south club) tickets away. I know the ticket office set up a ticket exchange, but to the best of my knowledge they try to resell at face value. Maybe there should be a better way to tweak that system (and include parking - which is another big issue) to make it more user friendly and get the word out that there are tickets available.
My seats are in the NEZ, there have been empty seats all year. Now some are inside, but some haven’t shown up all year. I know these seats sold because they were unavailable when I made my selections. I guess we’ll see next May if they buy them again or not. I do think the game times 3pm scorchers, or 11AM breakfast games have hurt the season ticket holders. Winning, or the lack of it has hurt the rest of the stadium.
The first time the Arkansas…Razorbacks cheer was done was in the 1981 Texas game. The Longhorns were ranked number one, but had one catastrophe after another in the first half with turnovers, snaps over the punter’s head for a safety, taking a kickoff out of the end zone and not make it to the five yard line, etc. The Razorbacks led 25-3 at the half, and the crowd, which was going crazy with all that happened in the first half, kind of hit a state of happy cheerfulness in the 2nd half. We basically were in cruise control after halftime, especially after score 14 more points, and the crowd just started entertaining itself. The student section started the Arkansas! yell with no reaction from the west side for a few minutes, then they finally got the west side to respond. That was the day it started, the following week we played Houston in Little Rock for a Saturday night game, and the WMS crowd got it going as well, even though we lost to the Cougars, which we did fairly regularly back in those days. That Texas game eventually became 42-3, then finally 42-11. I remember getting quite angry at Texas for seeming to stall the conclusion of the game, it almost got completely dark before it was over, no lights at Razorback Stadium then. The students began storming the edge of the field with a couple of minutes left and started tearing down the goalpost on the south end.
Sorry all, but all you have to do is watch the LSU tiger pep band and the fans this Saturday to see how a fan base reacts to its band and the old traditional Tiger stand tunes. Those people will be dancing to the music all game long. That is precisely what happens in Death Valley…not a bunch of canned stuff. Also, I can imagine what would happen to the fan base at Kyle field at Texas A&M if canned music was introduced at that coliseum…Cut out or reduce that canned stuff and free up the band to play, allow the cheerleaders to cheer, and the students to perform. WPS!!!
You can’t hear our band on the north end of the stadium, lol. I doubt our band wants to play all game, but some new music/cheers wouldn’t hurt. Again, for the past 15 years, LSU has been winning the vast majority of time at home, winning helps everything. It seems like some wish to gloss that over.
I think you are really objecting to rap music. I am sure a lot of older fans would prefer country music. That would not suit well with recruits attending the games. Now most kids of all races listen to rap music.
LSU plays as much if not more rap and rock music as Arkansas. Bama plays it constantly, and louder than at Razorback Stadium. There are no SEC stadiums that I have been to games at in the past 10 years that don’t play loud music over the sound system. They still have a band, but the rap and rock music they play gets more reactions from the fans, and gets the stadium more instense and intimidating for the visiting team. I’m 56, so I can remember before it became like this, but it’s done Everywhere. Kyle Field does it also.