re: Piped in music in Tiger Stadium

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The following is a response from the LSU Admin to an e-mail I submitted last Fall. If you have as much disdain for PIM as do I then I would encourage you to write (cogently and respectfully) and voice your disapproval as well.

The current LSU Admin has a vision for TS but it's not one I fully share. His suggestion that PIM would not be necessary in the UF game is misleading as PIM was played extensively last yr during the UF game.


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Thank you for your email. The pre-recorded music is meant to supplement the band, not to replace it. It is never intended to play over the band, though we had one miscommunication last week when the band played and the pre-recorded music started. The band always has priority. However there are times in the game when the band does not play and the music is intended to fill that time. As you said in your email, with new television agreements, breaks can be very long and dead-time can be prolonged. The big games like Florida and Alabama – and the Georgia game that you mentioned – carry themselves as far as atmosphere. But there are a number of times during games when pre-recorded music can add to the event, such as last week when Jump Around was played and the student section got very involved in the song.

Your email will be forwarded to our marketing department so they are aware of these very reasonable concerns. We will continue to play pre-recorded music but will be careful to play the appropriate amount at the appropriate times.

Thank you for taking the time to write.

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Interesting note, because there's so much spin I'm getting a bit dizzy, especially with the following:

"The band always has priority. However there are times in the game when the band does not play and the music is intended to fill that time."

According to some people I've spoken to in the band, someone from the athletic dept. now sits with them and tells them when they can play and when they can't. So the "times in the game when the band does not play" is not really determined by the band, except on those brief occasions when they are getting food after halftime, etc.

This is not just going on at LSU, by the way. It's an unfortunate trend all over the country, and if the marketing "geniuses" have their way, everything you experience at ANY college stadium or arena will eventually be canned, homogenized, scripted, and artificial, with as much local flavor as a McDonald's restaurant. It's already that way in the NFL and NBA, and that's the model that these marketing types want to emulate. They apparently have NO sense of what makes a college ball game a unique experience, completely different depending on whether it is in Madison, WI, Austin, TX, or Baton Rouge. First we lose any semblance of local control over the radio (Clear Channel's many stations are about as individual as the aforementioned McDonald's) and that same homogenizing mindset is increasingly evident in college stadiums across the country. It's really sad....