Tech Focus: Venue Sound, Part 1 - Chasing the Fan Experience Balancing audio quality and noise is a constant struggle By Dan Daley, Audio Editor Wednesday, May 7, 2025 - 7:00 am
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Story Highlights
Time was when the design of a ballpark or a football stadium was determined by the nature of the sport it was built to hold. Dating to the Roman Colosseum, the elliptical interior, perfect for chariot races and gladiatorial contests, was stretched to accommodate the more acute right angles of football, and baseball stadiums' more flexible designs allow teams to accommodate the strength of their rosters, such as higher centerfield fences to tamp down opposing home runs.
Today, sports venues not only have to be all things to all people but have to do so quietly, either being built in downtowns or finding urban areas densifying around them.
In some cases, sports venues are being redesigned even before what the new configurations will be used for is determined. For instance, Bridgestone Arena, home to the NHL's Nashville Predators, in April announced a $650 million, 175,000-sq.-ft. expansion. It will add 600-700 seats to its overall capacity but also include conceptual shell spaces that may - or may not - become hotel rooms. We're creating opportunities at this point before we define what becomes what, Nashville Predators Chief Strategy Officer Kyle Clayton told the local Tennessean newspaper.
The Effect on the Sound
WJHW's Mark Graham: Teams know they need to up their game experience in the stadium to fill seats, and sound is part of that.
Venue sound systems are undergoing similar changes, with similar uncertainties about how to keep up with fan expectations. WJHW Principal Mark Graham points out how some collegiate stadiums, which have long relied on point-source PA-system designs to throw sound from one end across an entire stadium, are turning to distributed sound systems. These replace the brute force of point-source systems with often hundreds of smaller speakers located throughout seating areas, bringing the sound closer to the fans. You can get better high-frequency response, he explains, and that sound energy is more local and more direct to the listener and less affected by the environment, with a speaker less than 50-100 ft. away instead of 500 ft.
Speech intelligibility, he adds, can also be enhanced with distributed systems, allowing fans to better understand referee calls through the PA system. In football in particular, trying to get the referee mic to operate at a level that helps the spectators understand is often difficult because you have a very, very large point-source sound system pointed right at the microphone. It's just a very difficult acoustical environment to make the ref mics work. Since distributed systems put less sound on the playing field itself, they're able to reinforce the referee to the spectators much more intelligibly.
Those types of distributed-design solutions, also incorporating large-format line-array loudspeakers, will be part of new stadiums under construction for the Tennessee Titans and Buffalo Bills, both of which are WJHW projects.
The larger trend that this addresses is the back and forth that sports production wrestles with in trying to emulate an in-person experience for broadcast and streaming viewers, even as the venues themselves try to lure those viewers back to the stadium with a sonic experience more like they can now get at home.
They can be at home watching on their 65-in. TV from 10 ft. away through their home surround-sound system and enjoy the game without the parking hassles and $15 beers, Graham says. The teams know they need to up their game experience in the stadium to fill those seats, and sound is part of that.
Immersive Sound for Venues Immersive audio has been moving from broadcast to venues over the past several years, with performance venues like Sphere in Las Vegas and advanced three-dimensional systems from such companies as L-Acoustics and d&b audiotechnik suggesting how well the format can translate. Sports venues would be a natural progression.
Salas O'Brien's Ryan Knox: To address noise concerns, especially in venues, the [solution] combines predictive modeling with advanced sound-control products.
Immersive sound is being considered in live sound, but its adoption is still limited, especially in arenas and stadiums, says Ryan Knox, senior consultant, Salas O'Brien, which has designed sound systems for such venues as the Crypto.com Arena, home to the NBA's L.A. Kings and Lakers. While there are a few examples where immersive audio has been explored, it's considered a significant technical and logistical lift, due to the sheer quantity of equipment required. Currently, video tends to lead the way in creating immersive experiences, while audio in sports venues is more focused on improving bandwidth and overall sound quality rather than full immersion.
That said, he adds that live sports sound will continue to evolve to be more like that heard in entertainment venues. This includes aligning installed systems more closely with touring sound equipment, using compatible arrays, amplifiers, and distribution systems to make venues more tour-friendly.
Strategic speaker placement - sometimes even mounting speakers on motors for repositioning - helps touring acts better integrate with house systems, he continues. Some venues use portable systems that can be reconfigured for different event formats (for example, sports in the round vs. end-stage concerts), and many now include additional delay speakers to better cover seating areas that might otherwise be difficult for touring systems to reach.
Dealing With Noise Systems designers are also spending more time and effort on addressing noise issues around sports venu
