Wave (audience)

Stadium crowd performing "the wave" at the Confederations Cup 2005 in Frankfurt

The wave (British English: Mexican wave) is achieved in a packed stadium when successive groups of spectators briefly stand and raise their arms. Each spectator is required to rise at the same time as those straight in front and behind, and slightly after the person immediately to either the right (for a clockwise wave) or the left (for a counterclockwise wave). Immediately upon stretching to full height, the spectator returns to the usual seated position.

The result is a "wave" of standing spectators that travels through the crowd, even though individual spectators never move away from their seats. In many large arenas the crowd is seated in a contiguous circuit all the way around the sport field, and so the wave is able to travel continuously around the arena; in discontiguous seating arrangements, the wave can instead reflect back and forth through the crowd. When the gap in seating is narrow, the wave can sometimes pass through it. Usually only one wave crest will be present at any given time in an arena. Simultaneous, counter-rotating waves have been produced.

Origins

Monterrey, Mexico

There are claims that the wave was created in the early 1960s, in Monterrey, Mexico, during a football match between Tigres UANL and C.F. Monterrey Rayados. During the half time, the players were taking longer than expected to return to the field, the crowd grew anxious, and the organizers were trying to entertain the crowd and throwing match balls as presents. People were getting more and more creative with their cheer, and thus created "la ola" (the wave), which after a few attempts made its way all the way around the stadium.

1970s - 1980s

Some people claim that the wave was created later (by chance) at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and adopted by the National Hockey League in Canada in the late 1970s, then introduced to a wider audience (intentionally) in October 1981 at a Major League Baseball game in Oakland, California, by Krazy George, and at an American football game in Seattle, Washington. The wave is also believed to have been created in Vancouver, British Columbia by a marketing campaign for the local soccer team the Vancouver Whitecaps, in which they got the crowd to perform this for a commercial in which their slogan was "Catch the Wave." The 1973 Indianapolis 500 Memorial Day Race was rain delayed over a period of 3 days. One man on the outside of turn four started entertaining the crowd. It took several tries to get the wave going. The race track was a two and half mile oval; the wave never made it all the way around the oval but it was a good attempt.

On June 24, 1981, while waiting for President Reagan to take the podium at the U.S. Jaycees National Convention at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas, the Jaycee members and their guests—about 10,000 people—began doing the wave. It lasted for about three or four minutes before the Secret Service requested the U.S. Jaycee President ask the membership to stop the action, presumably because it made it difficult to monitor the crowd. This address by the President was only the second or third major speech after he had been shot by John Hinckley Jr. on March 30, 1981.

Despite various reports, by the mid-1980s the practice was widespread throughout Mexico and North America. However, during the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, it gained worldwide notice, and Mexican Wave became the official name of this powerful cheer, often referred to as "la Ola Mexicana" or simply "la ola" from its Mexican derivative, even in non-Spanish speaking countries.

Bill the Beerman

Bill Scott, a Seattle bartender, started selling beer to football crowds at Seattle's Kingdome in 1976. He loved selling beer and seeing people cheering and encouraged everyone to follow his cheers. He could be heard all over the Kingdome and would lead one side of the stadium and then the other in cheering contests. Some in the Pacific Northwest claim it was Bill the Beerman who created the Wave in the Kingdome in the 1970s. He was an icon at the Kingdome and was loved by the crowd. He also worked for the Seattle SuperSonics and the Seattle Mariners and eventually worked for the Portland Trail Blazers, other CBA teams, NHL hockey teams and finally at Boise State University for their football games. Bill died on March 25, 2007 at the age of 58.

Krazy George

Some claim that the first appearance of the wave was a section by section cheer at a Major League Baseball game that was led by professional cheerleader Krazy George Henderson in Oakland, California on October 15, 1981, in an American League Championship Series game between the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees.

Krazy George believes that the wave originally was inspired by accident when he was leading cheers at a National Hockey League game at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His routine was to have one side of the arena jump and cheer, then have the opposite side respond. One night in late 1980, there was a delayed response from one section of fans, leading to them jumping to their feet a few seconds later than the section beside them. The next section of fans followed suit, and the first wave circled the Northlands Coliseum of its own accord. Krazy George then perfected the method for initiating a wave cheer with the Edmonton fans, and carried the wave with him to other venues, culminating with the aforementioned televised Major League Baseball game.

University of Washington

Many claim that the first wave originated in Seattle at the University of Washington's Husky Stadium on October 31, 1981, at the prompting of Dave Hunter (Husky band trumpet player) and Robb Weller (later Entertainment Tonight co-host, and then a television producer). Contrary to Weller's account, former Washington yell leader Tolly Allen has also claimed credit for the first wave. Weller, a Washington graduate, was the guest yell-king during the Huskies' homecoming football game against the Stanford University Cardinal (led by junior quarterback John Elway). Weller's initial concept for the wave was for it to travel vertically, from the bottom of the stands to the top, within the UW student section. Weller claimed to have done this at games when he was yell king. When that was met with limited interest, Weller then came up with the idea to move the wave from top to bottom.

This failed miserably, as it was necessary to turn backward to see the wave progressing downward. Weller then gave up and returned his attention to the game. However, some fans, including Dave Hunter, toward the open (East) end of the stadium on the student side started yelling "sideways". Weller did not hear them, but the students tried to initiate a "sideways" wave on their own. After a few attempts, and more yelling of "sideways" by students, Weller took notice. He instructed the crowd to stand as he ran past. He moved along the track toward the open end of the stadium, explaining to the student crowd what he would do, then ran along the track toward the closed end of the stadium, in front of the student section. After a couple of tries, this caught on, and continued around the entire Husky Stadium, and was repeated throughout the rest of the game and the season. Longtime UW band director Bill Bissell also claimed co-creator credit with Weller, suggesting that the wave was devised by both of them prior to the game. The following week, the wave appeared at Seattle Seahawks professional football games in the Kingdome and has been a staple of Seattle sports ever since.

University of Michigan

In the early fall of 1983, the Michigan Wolverines played the Huskies in Seattle and brought the wave back to Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. A letter to the sports editor of The New York Times claimed, "There are three reasons why the wave caught on at Michigan Wolverine games: It gave the fans something to do when the team was leading its opponent by 40 points, it was thrilling and exciting to see 105,000 people in the stands moving and cheering, and Bo Schembechler asked us not to do it." The fans responded to his request by doing more waves, including "Silent Waves" (standing and waving arms without cheering), "Shsh Waves" (replacing the cheering with a "shshing" sound), the "Fast Wave," the "Slow Wave," and two simultaneous waves traveling in opposite directions. The following spring, fans who had enjoyed the wave in Ann Arbor introduced it to the nearby Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Tigers won the World Series that year and appeared on many televised games throughout 1984, so people all over America saw it.

Global broadcasts

The 1984 Rose Bowl was broadcast outside North America on January 2, 1984, introducing other countries to the wave as UCLA and Illinois fans kept it going around the Rose Bowl Stadium.

A larger international audience witnessed it during the 1984 Olympic football semifinal between Brazil and Italy on August 8 at the Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California. A huge crowd of over 80,000 people participated in making several multiple and sometimes opposing running waves.

The wave was later on display at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. For many people living outside of North America, this was the first time they ever saw the phenomenon, and it was dubbed the "Mexican wave". In Brazil, Germany, Italy, and other countries the wave is called "la ola" (or simply ola) from the Spanish word for "wave".

Current appearances

Today, the wave is mostly seen during FIFA World Cup events when the spectators wants to show appreciation for the match or during a lull in the action on the sports field to amuse themselves. There is some controversy as to when the wave is appropriate to perform during a sporting event. Some feel that the wave can be performed at any time, and is often done so.

In Melbourne, Australia, waves commonly travel in a counterclockwise direction. Prior to the redevelopment of the Melbourne Cricket Ground between 2002 and 2006, spectators seated in the Members' Stand (reserved for members of the Melbourne Cricket Club) would not participate in a Mexican wave, and would be booed by other spectators at the ground, before the wave would resume on the other side of the stand. Sociologist John Carroll described the practice of "booing the Members" as dismissive of any claim to authority or superior social status on the members' part, although good-natured and based on the egalitarian nature of watching sports. (As a postscript to the "booing the Members" phenomenon, even when the Members stand was closed due to the reconstruction work, the crowd would still boo, despite the Members' stand being completely empty. When The Wave was banned large sections of the Members participated in the protest waves). Such a feature is also observed at Lords, where the Members in the pavilion rarely participate to the boos of the crowd.

Metrics

In 2002, Tamás Vicsek of the Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary along with his colleagues analyzed videos of 14 waves at large Mexican football stadiums, developing a standard model of wave behavior (published in the September 12 issue of Nature). He found that it takes only the actions of a few dozen fans to trigger a wave. Once started, it usually rolls in a clockwise direction at a rate of about 12 m/s (40 ft/s), or about 22 seats per second. At any given time the wave is about 15 seats wide. These observations appear to be applicable across different cultures and sports, though details vary in individual cases.

Size records

At the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sharpie 500, held at Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, Tennessee on August 23, 2008, 168,000 people performed the wave to set a new Guinness World Record.

At the 1986 Indianapolis 500, spectators performed a massive wave around nearly half the 2.5-mile oval, which holds approximately 250,000 seats.

At the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 110,000 people made an inverse wave and two simultaneous opposite direction waves.

Banning

Cricket Australia has banned the wave from all international grounds due to objects being, either unintentionally or deliberately, thrown into the air at the same time. These include plastic cups containing beer, hot food items, or even urine, which affects the other spectators around the person who threw it. Anyone who attempts to start a wave will be ejected from the ground. The banning of the Mexican Wave has been met with a mostly negative response from Australia's sports-going public.