page_title: Seattle Seahawks
section_title: 12th Man
hierarchical_section_title: Seattle Seahawks / 12th Man
caption_attribution_description: English: The former Seattle Seahawks "Home of the 12th Man" signage within CenturyLink Field.
context_page_description: The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle, Washington. They compete in the National Football League as a member club of the league's National Football Conference West division. The Seahawks joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team. Currently coached by Pete Carroll, they have played their home games at CenturyLink Field in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood since 2002. They previously played home games in the Kingdome and Husky Stadium.
  Seahawks fans have been referred to collectively as the "12th Man", "12th Fan", or "12s". The team's fans have twice set the Guinness World Record for the loudest crowd noise at a sporting event, first registering 136.6 decibels during a game against the San Francisco 49ers in September 2013, and later during a Monday Night Football game against the New Orleans Saints a few months later, with a then record-setting 137.6 dB. The Seahawks are the only NFL franchise based in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and thus attract support from a wide geographical area, including some parts of Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska, as well as Canadian fans in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
context_section_description: The 12th man (also known as the 12s) refers to the fan support of the Seahawks. The team's first home stadium, the Kingdome, was one of the loudest and most disruptive environments in the NFL. Opponents were known to practice with rock music blaring at full blast to prepare for the often painfully high decibel levels generated at games in the Kingdome.
  In 2002, the Seahawks began playing at what is now CenturyLink Field. Every regular season and playoff game at CenturyLink Field since the 2nd week of the 2003 season has been played before a sellout crowd. Like the Kingdome before it, CenturyLink Field is one of the loudest stadiums in the league. The stadium's partial roof and seating decks trap and amplify the noise and reflect it back down to the field. This noise has caused problems for opposing teams, causing them to commit numerous false-start penalties. From 2002 through 2012, there have been 143 false-start penalties on visiting teams in Seattle, second only to the Minnesota Vikings.
  The Seahawks' fans have twice set the Guinness World Record for the loudest crowd noise at a sporting event, first on September 15, 2013, registering 136.6 dB during a game against the San Francisco 49ers and again on December 2, 2013, during a Monday Night Football game against the New Orleans Saints, with a roar of 137.6 dB. As of September 29, 2014, the record of 142.2 dB is held in Arrowhead Stadium by fans of the Kansas City Chiefs.
  Prior to kickoff of each home game, the Seahawks salute their fans by raising a giant #12 flag at the south end of the stadium. Current and former players, coaches, local celebrities, prominent fans, Seattle-area athletes, and former owner Paul Allen have raised the flag. Earlier, the Seahawks retired the #12 jersey on December 15, 1984 as a tribute to their fans. Before their Super Bowl win, the Seahawks ran onto the field under a giant 12th Man flag.
  In September 1990, Texas A&M filed, and was later granted, a trademark application for the "12th Man" term, based on their continual usage of the term since the 1920s. In January 2006, Texas A&M filed suit against the Seattle Seahawks to protect the trademark and in May 2006, the dispute was settled out of court. In the agreement, which expired in 2016, Texas A&M licensed the Seahawks to continue using the phrase, in exchange for a licensing fee, public acknowledgement of A&M's trademark when using the term, a restriction in usage of the term to seven states in the Northwest United States, and a prohibition from selling any "12th Man" merchandise. Once the agreement expired, the Seahawks were allowed to continue using the number "12" but were no longer permitted to use the "12th Man" phrase. In August 2015, the Seahawks decided to drop their signage of the "12th Man" term and shifted towards referring to their fans as the "12s" instead.
caption: "Home of the 12th Man" signage within CenturyLink Field in 2013.
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