The World Series starts tonight. Congrats to the Dodgers and Rays (one of the great classic rivalries in sports).
People ask me what I think about the fake crowd noise in sporting events now that spectators are not allowed in stadiums or arenas.
As a viewer I find the crowd noise WEIRD. Especially in baseball and football where you see the empty grandstands in almost every shot. Where are all these people? It’s the same argument I always made (in vain) to CBS about the laugh track on MASH. Are there bleachers on the chopper pad?
Basketball and hockey are easier to accept because the action focuses on the court or ice and you can forget that they’re playing to the camera only.
But as an announcer, I would so welcome the fake crowd noise if I were calling a game, especially just calling it over the TV. Without a crowd it just sounds dead.
I was broadcasting a Mariners game from Cleveland a few years ago on the radio. It was a make-up game the end of the season. So it wasn’t on the schedule, it started at 4:00 pm, both teams had already been eliminated, and huge thunderstorms were expected to drench the area. Needless to say, nobody came to the game. If there were 2,000 people I’d be surprised. In one of my innings the Mariners scored ten runs. There were triples and stolen bases and capped off with a grand slam home run.
After the game we were flying to Texas. I asked the engineer if he would email me an mp3 of that inning. I thought it would be a fun keepsake. You don’t usually get to call ten run innings.
When I got to my room in Texas it was waiting for me in my inbox. I listened to it and was horrified. It sounded like I recorded it in my living room watching the TV with the sound down. There was NO crowd noise at all. None. I’d say crickets but not even that. What should have been an exciting inning was C-Span. And the fact that I sounded so excited (after all, fun things were happening) make me appear like an idiot.
So the crowd noise psychologically helps the announcer get into it. It’s like a singer who would much prefer a band behind him. On TV it’s still weird to watch, but on radio you can really suspend belief.
What they need though is the sound of people doing the wave.
0 Yorumlar