Germany's top-flight soccer league was broadcast in the US with fake crowd noise, and it sounded surprisingly normal, Business Insider - Business Insider Singapore
by Tyler Lauletta- Fox Sports 1 pumped fake crowd noise into its Bundesliga broadcasts over the weekend.
- While the initial idea of using artificial crowd noise received some pushback from fans, it felt as if people embraced the concept when it was put into practice.
- Fox’s decision to experiment with crowd noise for German soccer could be seen as a test of sorts for how the network might handle empty arenas as sports leagues in the US move toward restarting.
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Sports fans may not be seen in arenas for some time, but they might still be heard.
The Bundesliga, the top-flight soccer league in Germany, was one of the first major sports leagues to start back up after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the sports world to hit pause. While matches are still being played in empty arenas, over the weekend the league’s American broadcast partner Fox Sports 1 decided to test what might become a big part of its broadcasts this coming fall: pumping in crowd noise.
The artificial ambiance of crowd noise became a hotly debated topic in the sports world after Joe Buck – the play-by-play announcer for Fox’s top NFL broadcasts – said he believed it would be a part of the coming football season.
“It’s pretty much a done deal,” Buck said during an interview with “Andy Cohen Live” on SiriusXM. “I think whoever is going to be at that control is going to have to be really good at their job and be realistic with how a crowd would react depending on what just happened on the field. So it’s really important.”
At the time, fans were quick to embrace or dismiss the idea, but over the weekend Fox Sports 1 gave the concept its first real test run.
On Twitter, fan response was still mixed, but it felt as if more people were coming around to the prospect of more games being broadcast with artificial crowd noise.
With fans beginning to embrace pumped-in crowd noise, we could see the trend continue as the summer rolls into fall, with the NBA and MLB looking to get their seasons going and the NFL gearing up for a September start to its regular season.
While the artificial noise has seemingly worked out OK for soccer broadcasts, other sports would most likely present a greater challenge when it comes to providing a real game-day feeling.
Throughout FS1’s Bundesliga broadcasts, the crowd noise served as something of an ambient bed – indiscernible chants, whistles, and cheers filled the empty space of each half, and the only major adjustment necessary was turning up the celebratory energy when the home side netted a goal.
But given the start-stop nature of basketball and football, creating and controlling an artificial soundscape that swells, quiets, and reacts as a real crowd might prove a more difficult needle to thread.
For now, Fox still has time to figure out how best to simulate the sounds of a live crowd for fans watching at home, and the Bundesliga presents the network with a solid testing ground to further fine-tune its effort.
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