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Gee, 'Sweet Caroline' is popular at sporting events......and how did it all start? This is from the link in neilfws's post above;
It?s stiff to pin responsibility for all this on any one individual but the hard truth is that there?s a 21-year-old woman in New England with a lot to answer for. She?s called Caroline and when she was born, in 1997, a friend of her parents, Amy Tobey, who had a job picking the music they play when the Red Sox are at Fenway Park, decided to celebrate with Neil Diamond?s Sweet Caroline. The Red Sox won. Tobey was superstitious, so started to play it again every now and then, in the seventh and ninth innings when the team were winning. Until her new boss decided to make it the Fenway anthem.
Two decades later they play Sweet Caroline at every game. Not just every game in Boston, understand, but every game everywhere. It?s the track No 1 on Now That?s What I Call Stadium Filler 2018. It?s been a fixture at home games for Penn State, the Pittsburgh Panthers, Castleford Tigers, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Reading FC, Oxford United, the Sydney Swans, Saracens, and dozens of other clubs. It?s become the soundtrack of sportainment. You can hear it at the Australian Open tennis, England?s internationals at Twickenham and T20 finals day.
I'm thinking it might be here to stay but there may be some hope. From the same article:
There is an alternative. Last year the commercial team at the New York Knicks NBL basketball team came up with a radical idea. They decided their game against the Golden State Warriors at Madison Square Gardens would be played in silence. No soundtrack, no video. It was such a bold idea they only felt brave enough to do it for the first half.
The big screens ran the message that ?today?s game will be presented without music, video, or in-game entertainment, so you can experience the game in it?s purest form?.
And so the half played out to a soundtrack of shuffling, squeaking sneakers, the thump and swish of the ball, the buzz of conversation and the cries and shouts and cheers of the fans. All the noises you heard when you first fell in love with the game.
Although they don't say if it was more popular with the fans........ I suspect it was.
It?s stiff to pin responsibility for all this on any one individual but the hard truth is that there?s a 21-year-old woman in New England with a lot to answer for. She?s called Caroline and when she was born, in 1997, a friend of her parents, Amy Tobey, who had a job picking the music they play when the Red Sox are at Fenway Park, decided to celebrate with Neil Diamond?s Sweet Caroline. The Red Sox won. Tobey was superstitious, so started to play it again every now and then, in the seventh and ninth innings when the team were winning. Until her new boss decided to make it the Fenway anthem.
Two decades later they play Sweet Caroline at every game. Not just every game in Boston, understand, but every game everywhere. It?s the track No 1 on Now That?s What I Call Stadium Filler 2018. It?s been a fixture at home games for Penn State, the Pittsburgh Panthers, Castleford Tigers, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Reading FC, Oxford United, the Sydney Swans, Saracens, and dozens of other clubs. It?s become the soundtrack of sportainment. You can hear it at the Australian Open tennis, England?s internationals at Twickenham and T20 finals day.
I'm thinking it might be here to stay but there may be some hope. From the same article:
There is an alternative. Last year the commercial team at the New York Knicks NBL basketball team came up with a radical idea. They decided their game against the Golden State Warriors at Madison Square Gardens would be played in silence. No soundtrack, no video. It was such a bold idea they only felt brave enough to do it for the first half.
The big screens ran the message that ?today?s game will be presented without music, video, or in-game entertainment, so you can experience the game in it?s purest form?.
And so the half played out to a soundtrack of shuffling, squeaking sneakers, the thump and swish of the ball, the buzz of conversation and the cries and shouts and cheers of the fans. All the noises you heard when you first fell in love with the game.
Although they don't say if it was more popular with the fans........ I suspect it was.
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