How will "fake" fan noise affect NFL broadcasts?

Yahoo Sports' Terez Paylor and Charles Robinson break down the report of Fox using fake crowd noise during broadcasts.

View more

Video Transcript

TEREZ PAYLOR: Joe Buck says Fox is gonna pump in fake crowd noise during their broadcast. Plans are already in place for the network to do that, and they're trying to just simulate a normal atmosphere by pumping in crowd noise and digital fans.

I am not going to lie, I do love baseball. And there have been times where I have not been able to sleep recently, and I have watched the Korean Baseball Organization. And they do that. And I'm telling you, outside of the shots of the stadium, you really can forget that people are really not there. I don't--

CHARLES ROBINSON: Hm.

TEREZ PAYLOR: Yeah, it doesn't bother me that much. It'll probably bother a lot of people. But they pump it in, it sounds like it. I'm OK with it.

And you know I got my theory. I'd rather hear the music get pumped in. I think they can make money off of it. I recently ran that idea past JC Tretter, the new NFL PA union president. He started laughing about it. He said he would prefer that to crowd noise, and actually we'll get to him in a minute.

But I want to know where you're at. A, have you watched any sports that have been out there where they simulate the crowd noise? And B, are you buying that it could actually not be that distracting? Because I was stunned at how little it bothered me.

CHARLES ROBINSON: When the Falcons-- so the Falcons got in trouble for pumping in crowd noise. Now the Falcons are like, now we can do it legally. They're not gonna get docked any draft picks.

I've never seen anything with fake, simulated crowd noise. I saw that headline. I thought it was pretty interesting that they're gonna do it. I will tell you the few things that I've seen, the UFC stuff and then--

TEREZ PAYLOR: Yeah, yeah.

CHARLES ROBINSON: And there was a couple wrestling-- so there's like a couple wrestling--

TEREZ PAYLOR: Yeah.

CHARLES ROBINSON: --things that happened.

TEREZ PAYLOR: I heard that's weird.

CHARLES ROBINSON: I did not like it. I did not. I was like, this feels--

TEREZ PAYLOR: Strange.

CHARLES ROBINSON: --bizarre. empty. It's distracting from the experience. Yeah, I did not like it at all. I didn't like the UFC thing either.

Some people were like, well, you get to hear everything. I kind of like that. I didn't. I think it's just too distracting from what you're watching, and I would rather--

That's fine. I don't have a problem with them pumping in some crowd noise or whatever. I like the simulated experience. I do think there are probably some people who are gonna go, hey, when are we gonna ever have the chance to see something like this again?

Close