Tech Focus: Athlete Audio - Venues Provide Sound Just for the Players

Tech Focus: Athlete Audio - Venues Provide Sound Just for the Players From locker room to field of play, personalized systems help rev up the athletes By Dan Daley, Audio Editor

Wednesday, July 9, 2025 - 8:45 am

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Baseball parks are filled with sound: PA systems pump prerecorded music and themes, stadium Wurlitzers play a live underscore for the game, and the crowds chant and cheer. Closer to home plate, batters listen to personally chosen music via a tightly focused sound system, firing them up to face the first fastball.

Getting better sound to fans in the stands has been a goal for sports venues for decades. Sonically good audio helps leagues and teams fill seats at a time when sports compete with entertainment for consumer dollars. That dynamic has transformed high-end sound systems designed for music into house PA system in stadiums and arenas.

Not surprisingly, the athletes on the fields, gridirons, and pitches want a piece of that, to pump themselves up.

Player-centric soundscapes, as they're called, often start in back of house. Player lounges and locker rooms once sonically illuminated by '90s-style boom boxes are now lined with recessed ceiling speakers and hidden subwoofers. They're meant to do the same thing that the sound systems in the bowls do: create an anticipatory atmosphere both familiar and edgy. Accompanied by personal playlists, athletes rev up to do battle. Some soundscapes incorporate motivational cues or even ambient sounds that resonate with individual athletes. All are designed to create to a heightened sense of focus and mental preparedness.

End-to-End Sound

Salas O'Brien's Brian Elwell: It's all about creating a separate sound experience for the athletes.

Design consultancy Salas O'Brien has been focusing on back-of-house areas for bespoke sound systems designed to energize players before they get to the bowl. There's a path from the lounge and the locker room through to tunnel to the field that's an opportunity to get the team hyped for a game, notes Salas O'Brien SVP Brian Elwell.

Each area becomes part of a larger, installed-sound system whose content is usually curated by a team staffer. The spaces and their sound are even part of the recruitment process at colleges and universities, he points out.

Once teams make it onto the field, he adds, that role is increasingly taken over by separate, cart-mounted systems rolled out on the home-team side. At that point, music and effects can be coordinated with DJs using the house sound to pump up the fans.

Those types of systems are especially popular with college teams: Salas O'Brien has implemented them for Baylor University and the University of Texas, while Boston College has opted for an installed sound system for athlete energizing at its Alumni Field.

Sound on the Ice

Nashville Predators' Jacob Lutz: Ice-fill speakers are specifically designed to get the sound directly to the hockey players.

At Bridgestone Arena, home to the NHL Nashville Predators, a d&b audiotechnik immersive Soundscape PA system covers the crowd, but a separate set of speakers beneath the center-hung scoreboard can bombard the ice and the icemen with combinations of the same content, doled out through its own channels (and with the supervision of the league).

The ice-fill speakers are specifically designed to cover the ice, explains Jacob Lutz, director, technical operations, Predators. They're loud and intended to get the sound directly to the hockey players. You would barely hear them on the other side the glass.

Unlike the NBA's nearly ubiquitous soundtracks during games, hockey's player-centric soundscapes are adjusted according to play intensity. We're not like the NBA where you can play music throughout the game, he says. It has to be [only] at certain times: during warmups, things like that. We focus more on our warmup mixes; they're curated by players and by teams for what they're going to get in the mood for.

It's all managed by Predators Game Producer Teri Johnson and follows a kind of script: warm-up music just ahead of the game and each period gives way to the main PA's content for goals, essentially uniting players and fans in a victorious moment. At other times, the main PA will be used to prod the crowd but is kept out of the ice speakers so as not to interfere with game play or officials' calls.

[Nashville-based] Spectrum Sound did a really good job designing our ice system, says Lutz. Our mains are using Soundscape, but you really cannot hear them if you are inside the glass. It's pretty incredible actually.

Alternating between the two systems is its own kind of music mixing, he agrees. It blends two separate worlds that come together with every goal and game win, but, like any music mix, it requires deft balance, particularly with the subwoofers. You get too much low end around the benches and [the vibrations] can cause issues like sticks falling down. The right balance for the players' mix is the million-dollar question.

Lutz sees the trend spreading, with newer venues adding provisions for player-centric soundscapes throughout the athletic areas. That was apparent at the recent Infocomm Show, he notes, which has become the main expo for touring and installed sound systems. Enhancing what Bridgestone already does for players will be part of the venue's upcoming refresh. One element will be the player-lounge installation of Theory Professional loudspeakers, whose tag line Positive Reinforcement seems tailor-made for the application.

We found them at Infocomm and were absolutely blown away by the size and form factor, he says. It's all about elevating [the players'] experience and giving them what they need for a competiti

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