Great World Cup! But can't they ban the vuvuzela?
Thus far, the top three stories of the World Cup are (3) Germany looks strong, (2) the U.S. got lucky, and (1) the vuvuzela is remarkably annoying.
For those who haven鈥檛 tuned in yet, the vuvuzela is a meter-long plastic horn whose name translates roughly as 鈥渕aking a vuvu noise.鈥� And make a noise it does. When thousands of fans start blowing, you鈥檇 think a swarm of bees was taking over the soccer stadium 鈥� and your living room. Highly annoying.
And that鈥檚 not all. , the vuvuzelas raise other concerns:
They have been associated with permanent noise-induced hearing loss, cited as a possible safety risk when spectators can鈥檛 hear evacuation announcements, and potentially spread colds and flu viruses on a greater scale than coughing or shouting.
In short, the vuvuzela creates a host of externalities. So it鈥檚 not surprising that FIFA is under growing pressure to ban them.
I鈥檝e been unable to come up with a market-based approach for dealing with the vuvuzela 鈥� there won鈥檛 ever be a Pigou club to limit the vuvu noise 鈥� and I would personally benefit from such a ban. So I鈥檓 all for it.
It is worth pondering, however, whether there are less drastic actions that might address some of the vuvuzela nuisance. Here鈥檚 one idea: ESPN and ABC should figure out a way to cancel out most of the vuvuzela noise. I still want to hear the cheers of the crowd and the screams of players who pretend to be hurt, but those are on different frequencies than the dreaded vuvu noise.
I don鈥檛 know how technically challenging that would be, but the marketplace is already providing similar solutions for consumers. According to , you can change the sound settings on your TV, purchase an anti-vuvuzela sound filter, or even build your own filter at home.
Or you can go really low tech and use your mute button.
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