The vibrations of HSV vs. Regensburg
During the football match of Hamburger SV against Jahn Regensburg in the Volksparkstadion on September 15, 2024, our WAVE fiber optic network was again listening in.
Key Observations
This is a spectrogram of the five hours covering the football match Hamburger SV vs. Jahn Regensburg. The stadium is located at a distance of ca. 1.5 km from the part of the WAVE fiber network we have used for this analysis. The horizontal axis of the plots is time and the vertical axis beats per minute, which can be converted to a frequency in Hertz by dividing by 60.
The spectrogram clearly shows the signature of the two halftimes. Also, before 13:30 h and after 15:30 a larger amount of noise indicates the people walking to and leaving the stadium, which is why this noise is not visible during the halftime break. The game ended 5:0 and also without having watched the game five distinct signals at around 144 bpm (beats per minute) can be seen in the spectrogram. This frequency coincides with the beat of the goal jingle “Always Hamburg” by Scooter, which is played when HSV scores. However, it is likely that the measured signals are not only caused by the music itself, but rather by people jumping to the beat and thereby exciting waves. We have generated spectrograms of the two halftimes and marked the goals and a few other distinct events during the game.
Apart from the two goals scored by HSV there was also a goal scored by the opponent Regensburg that was revoked by the video assistant referee (VAR) two minutes later. Since no goal jingle is played for opponent goals, there is no distinct signal visible. However, it can be seen that the support of the fans dies down for a moment before recommencing a few moments later. After the goal was revoked, very light signals in the range from 100-150 bpm might be caused by the cheering of the fans, but the signals are too weak to clearly confirm this. Two very strong signals during the first half starting in minutes 16 and 37 were caused by the supporters jumping synchronously. We could correlate a third one starting in minute 19 with synchronous clapping and drums.
Also in the second half, the three goals scored by HSV in minutes 76, 89 and 93 can be clearly identified by their distinct signature. In comparison to the first half, the amplitudes seem slightly lower, which may be caused by the fact that the game was already decided and the explosion of joy of the fans is often more prominent when a game is tight. In general, in accordance with the game itself, the activities of the supporters were more calm during the first part of the second half. Two strong signals that we could correlate to jumping by watching the TV broadcast are visible starting in minutes 64 and 77. Also at around 15:30 h there is a very strong signal, which is caused by the supporters jumping synchronously while celebrating the victory together with the HSV players.
