Last night, Bernie Sanders took the stage at the Democratic National Convention and received a raucous, prolonged and loud standing ovation, and I wondered if it was the longest the building had ever seen. After tons of Twitter input from you, the reader, on the longest ovation in the 20-year history of the Wells Fargo Center, we have a definitive answer– yes it was, clocking it at 2:59.
Here are the top 14 ovations at the Wells Fargo Center. Keep in mind, there’s a recency bias here, and not all ovations pre-2006 or so are available on YouTube or elsewhere, so it’s possible we’re missing a few. There are also a number of 30-second or so Flyers and Sixers ovations over the years that have likely long been forgotten. But these are the best of the best.
A few notes about the findings, because there are more qualifications than I thought there would be for such a frivolous ranking:
Let’s delve:
Kobe suffered a bit from Matt Cord’s prolonged intro (we begin timing just as the intro ends), but deservingly comes in last here as he shunned the city for almost the entirety of his career until it was expedient for him.
Surprisingly low score here for Lindros, who may have gotten his official “welcome home” ovation two years earlier at the Winter Classic.
First appearance by Iverson on this list.
This is a timed ovation since it took place during a TV timeout, but not bad for an opponent during the game.
Not the longest, but one of the few that got its recipient to cry.
This was 10 minutes into a long ceremony and a few minutes after Joshua Harris bored the planet to tears and presented Allen Iverson with a fucking bass boat. Had Harris not spoken, Iverson’s ovation would’ve likely lasted longer than a minute.
I got a lot of mentions for this one and I’m surprised it wasn’t longer. I think what happened here was that, out of some misplaced sense of loyalty, the Sixers allowed Andre Iguodala, then the team’s star, to have his name called last, which undoubtedly zapped the buzz out of AI’s intro. The Answer robbed again!
I blame the unnecessarily slow walk. Howe shouldn’t be this high.
Well deserved.
Incredibly, Iverson’s longest ovation may have come before Game 6 against the Celtics in 2012 when he presented the game ball with a delightfully awkward Adam Aron and a smiling Joshua Harris.
Michael Jordan just blows them all away. I can’t believe how long this was. It more than doubled the longest sports ovation we could find and absolutely crushed Kobe Bryant’s farewell game. Philly gets such a bad rap, but it knows true greatness when it sees it…
… well, maybe not.
Congratulations to Bernie Sanders, who joins the likes of Allen Iverson, Ian Laperriere, George W. Bush and Michael Jordan on this list of strange bedfellows who had praise heaped upon them in South Philly at the home of the Flyers, Sixers, and Wing Bowl.