The Kansas City Chiefs have been the surprise of the young NFL season as they have gone from being an abysmal team stuck near the bottom of the league for the last couple of years to a possible Super Bowl contender behind new coach Andy Reid, new quarterback Alex Smith and a ferocious defense. Given their undefeated record Chiefs fans have a lot to cheer about.
And cheer they did as the raucous fans put Arrowhead Stadium in the "Guinness Book of World Records" for being the loudest stadium in the world on Sunday.
During the final minutes of a 24-7 victory over their rival Oakland Raiders to run their record to 6-0 Chiefs fans went crazy and registered a reading of 137.5 decibels; a volume comparable to the sound made by a jet engine from 100 feet away, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The record that the Chiefs fans took down wasn't exactly long standing; Seattle Seahawks fans set the record at 136.6 decibels earlier this season at CenturyLink Field. One thing that may have been working in Arrowhead's favor is its larger capacity; Arrowhead holds 12,000 more fans than CenturyLink, according to USA Today.
"The way the crowd was going, that was tough," Smith said. "I was sitting there on the sideline, and I could tell, it was a hard environment to execute in."
Philip Robertson, an adjudicator for the "Guinness Book of World Records," witnessed both the noisy crowd in Seattle four weeks ago and the slightly louder Chiefs crowd. For the duration of the game the Chiefs' crowd had a higher sustained level of noise than the Seahawks' crowd did but were falling just short of setting the record, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"In the fourth quarter, they got to 135.4, and that's where we thought they were going to finish," Robertson said. "Heads dropped, but then the fans really started working together."
Seattle fans will surely take this as a challenge and try to regain the record at their next home game. Maybe things will fall in place and the two groups of vociferous fans will meet in New Jersey for the Super Bowl where they can work together to set another record.
