NFL Team Stops Playing This Hit Pop Song During Player Introductions After Fans Revolt

Pretty much any sporting event you pay to see in person makes every dollar count by playing music over the public-address system that'll get hometown fans the most pumped up.

The NFL's Cincinnati Bengals are no different.

For a while they've relied on the blistering classic by Guns N' Roses, "Welcome to the Jungle," to get their fans rocking at a fever pitch.

(Credit: YouTube live video)

Then someone who clearly isn't keeping track of the fans' collective pulse decided to take a nifty left turn into Katy Perry land and her pop hit "Roar." An interesting move, to be sure. After all, isn't a roar something that Bengal Tigers do from time to time?

(Credit: Official video via YouTube)

But after playing Perry's "Roar" before, during and after their home opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday night, the Bengals brass got an eyeful of social-media backlash and took off with their tails between their legs.

A team spokesman told ESPN Saturday the organization is reevaluating how often it will play Perry's song during home games. But it won't likely happen during pre-game player introductions, which seemed to cause the most horror among fans:

Here's a Twitter sampling from Storify:

A new song has been selected for player introductions, the spokesman told ESPN, but he wouldn't reveal what it was.

"I think some fans proved that there's an expectation that when the team takes the field, there should be more of a hard-rock, classic-rock song and I know that's what we're going to do this game," Jeff Berding, the Bengals' director of sales and public affairs, told the Wall Street Journal. "Katy Perry is not going to be the last song you hear before the team takes the field."

Mitchell Morgan, a Bengals fan who was in attendance Monday, told the Wall Street Journal that he was unsurprised at the backlash.

"I mean, I know what they are going for but it's not going to work. How can you think you can do something like that without any backlash?" Morgan told the paper. "There were Steelers fans next to me laughing."

In case you're not a Katy Perry devotee, the official music video for "Roar" (below) may help put things in perspective (especially when you consider Axl Rose's growl and Slash's electric guitar riffing):

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