Beaver Stadium is something else when it gets rocking for a big Saturday showdown. Whether it’s for a big fourth-down stop or an incredible touchdown, the volume knob on Beaver Stadium’s amplifier is always cranked up to 11 on game days.
If you’ve noticed this season, the “Roar Tracker” has been a new addition to the Beaver Stadium jumbotron’s repertoire. Powered by State College-based company KCF Technologies, the tool aims to calculate and document the loudest moments in Beaver Stadium when the Nittany Lions take the field and show fans how many times the crowd disrupts the opposing team.
KCF Technologies CEO and co-founder Jeremy Frank, who graduated from Penn State in 1997 with a degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in business, got the idea back in 2019 following the now-famous timeout by Michigan before the first play of the game.
“[That disruption] is something that, all the way to James Franklin, is on the team’s radar,” Frank said. “If you can disrupt the game with the crowd…it’s massively advantageous. The idea for us getting involved was basically a follow-up to that. James Franklin making that literally a game priority, getting the students as involved as possible.”
Roar Tracker works through a number of sensors strategically planted throughout the bleachers under the stadium. These sense the vibration of the stadium and send signals to a “base station” also installed in the stadium.
The base station sends the signal to a cell tower. They constantly communicate to provide the most accurate description of how loud the stadium is.
While Roar Tracker started only recently, you can already see results from the sensors here. Unsurprisingly, some of the loudest moments from this past season happened during the White Out game against the Auburn Tigers. But Frank already knows that the record will be broken. When asked if he thought that the current record would be broken, he responded with two simple words:
“Yes. Michigan.”
But the funny thing is, some of the loudest moments at Beaver Stadium during Penn State’s four-week homestand weren’t even related to football. Some of the most powerful sounds came as the crowd sang “Sweet Caroline” or a hearty verse of Penn State’s Alma Mater.
“During the Auburn game, when Penn State had a turnover, that was loud. But when that was called back for a penalty, the response was even louder,” Frank said. “If you’re James Franklin, what you want to take back to the students is to realize you can have a massive impact on the game.”
Roar Tracker is still an evolving system, and Frank and his team are working toward having it give real-time feedback to fans. Imagine those “noise meters” you see on jumbotrons at sports games, except they actually work.
There is also hopes to one day adapt the Roar Tracker to other sports on campus, including hockey, volleyball and basketball.
With so much going on with this new technology, it will be interesting to see Roar Tracker evolve and grow throughout Penn State athletics. So next time the Nittany Lions defend a big fourth-and-one, get just a bit louder and let the Roar Tracker work its magic.
