MLB to pump crowd noise into games

[thomas35forever]

https://theathletic.com/1919837/2020...mpty-stadiums/
This is bogus. It's not going to feel genuine at all, and it's going to be insulting to everyone's intelligence.

[TDog]

https://theathletic.com/1919837/2020...mpty-stadiums/
This is bogus. It's not going to feel genuine at all, and it's going to be insulting to everyone's intelligence.

I don't disagree, but it could be better than the alternative, particularly on radio where there is a microphone on the field to catch crowd noise to limit dead air. Broadcasting games from empty stadiums comes with issues.

[HomeFish]

Can't wait to see an empty stadium burst into "Na Na Hey Hey" the next time a visiting starter has a short outing at the Rate.

[TDog]

Watching a game from an empty stadium wold be a hollow experience. Listening to a game without crowd noise, with only the crack of the bat and the sound of players echoing is unworldly. At the same time, there is something detached about recorded sound that isn't generated by what's going on. Thresholds for this vary among different people. I have a problem with recorded walk-up music, preferring a live organist who is feeding off the crowd as part of the sounds of the game. I first noticed I had a problem with this when I was going to games in San Diego and they would do the "charge" thing. But Nancy Faust provided the soundtrack to baseball when I was coming of age as a fan, so I was spoiled.

The crowd noise will bother some more than others. Knowing the stadiums are empty, people are more likely to be bothered than not. But the empty stadiums are a problem. Baseball without crowds seem more suited for spring training practice fields than stadiums. The settings are more intimate, and the sound of the game wold come through to replace the sound of the crowd.

There is something other worldly about a game in an empty baseball stadium. But there is something other worldly about the idea of recorded sound that is supposed to represent people that are there when they aren't. Years ago, I was writing stories about work at the Yuma Proving Ground. I had to talk to do a lot of the work over the telephone because the installation was a 40-minute drive into the desert. Even on the phone you could sometimes have to wait for someone to come to the phone. The answering system developed a glitch, and there were a couple of weeks when calls to YPG would go to Perry Como singing Papa Loves Mambo. When the song ended, it would begin again and so on. No one was there -- and, really, if there had been an accident leaving no one alive, the effect would have been the same. Just a Perry Como record playing over and over in a building in the middle of the desert.

Baseball from empty stadiums wouldn't be that bad.. (Perry Como isn't anyone's walk-up music, but, really, what would be the purpose for walk-up music in an empty stadium?) But I would find the lack of crowd noise unnerving.

.

[FielderJones]

https://theathletic.com/1919837/2020...mpty-stadiums/
This is bogus. It's not going to feel genuine at all, and it's going to be insulting to everyone's intelligence.

They are putting crowd noise on Premier League broadcasts.
https://www.msn.com/en-sg/sports/new...ar/ar-BB15Vjfh

[Nellie Fox]

I'm an Australian Rules Football fan. In fact, I'm watching Richmond vs. Sydney as I type this (fourth game on TV in the last two nights,) and I'm hearing the fake crowd noise they're pumping into the empty stadium. They do have the loud cheering at the appropriate moments, with just general murmuring and organized cheers at other times.

[PaleHoseGeorge]

This seems like pretty basic stuff. Distribute an app that let's fans watch on their device in real-time blended together to create the background crowd mix for the usual delayed broadcast that everybody else is watching. You as a fan thus get to pick your own preference. You can participate yourself yelling and cheering without fan noise or you can watch/listen in the usual fashion with real fans yelling or booing in the background same as always.

Well, duh...

[Chez]

Seinfeld used a laugh track for many scenes. It was still hilarious.

[TDog]

Seinfeld used a laugh track for many scenes. It was still hilarious.

That's really not such a bad analogy. Seinfeld was mostly filmed in front of a studio audience and audience reactions were part of the feel of the program. The few occasions when an audience track was added were felt necessary for consistency, not to tell people when to laugh, as was generally the case with studio-filmed television comedy. Tony Randall and Jack Klugman lobbied to abolish the Odd Couple laugh track, even running one episode without it and asking for viewer reaction. Oscar's New Life, featuring John Astin in a Hugh Hefner-like role, apparently has had canned laughs added in syndication, but it's airing without a laugh track convinced the network to compromise and film future seasons in front of a studio audience. Today it is more common for studio-filmed comedies (such as Modern Family) to go without the laugh track. Often the dialogue and comedy is faster paced (more Billy Wilder than Norman Lear) and the laughter would get int he way. Essentially, where Seinfeld added laughter, that laughter felt necessary for continuity.

Baseball adding crowd noise essentially may be the same thing.

[Huisj]

Now Fox is going to take it a step further with fake crowds superimposed over empty seats? Stupid.

[thomas35forever]

Anyone gonna try this Cheer feature? I have to admit this is pretty cool.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/22/us/ml...rnd/index.html

[TDog]

Anyone gonna try this Cheer feature? I have to admit this is pretty cool.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/22/us/ml...rnd/index.html

One problem I can see is different platforms broadcasting the games in different stages of delay. If you have ever watched a Comcast televised game on more than one device at the same time, you may have noticed they aren't in sync. I had a Giants game on television, my desktop computer and my laptop computer tuned the the same Giants game a couple of years ago with the game at three different stages. MLB Gameday also isn't real time, although that would be expected. I have read that games on FOX Sports and ESPN have read, have delays different from the everyday Comcast games, although I've never seen anything in my home on FOX Sports and it's been more than a decade since I've had ESPN on in my home and don't know whether MLB Gameday is ahead of either of those. I know that sometimes Gameday has been ahead of the MLB channel. A couple of years ago, I was watching a Sox game on MLB and Abreu hit a home run on Gameday before the ball was pitched on MLB. The differences in delays may depend where you get your cable and your bandwidth. I don't know enough about why there are delays. I only know that they are present and question the viability of a real-time cheer feature.