AN EMPTY EXPERIENCE
Life has gone back to normal.
Well, that’s what I thought last Monday, anyway, when I made a cup of coffee, planted myself in the reclining chair I’d bought for the purpose, and switched on
That’s the English Premier league football highlight program I watch on TV every week during the football season and when play hasn’t been shut down by a health pandemic, to keep in touch with the title and relegation battles.
It felt like old times, especially since I was watching the show two days after it had been broadcast. Part of my football watching routine for the past ten years has been to record the highlights so I can do other things on Saturday evenings and then watch the recap one or two days later when I have free time.
Of course, I’ve had to avoid TV and radio news, and social media posts between when the games were played and when I watched the highlights so I could be surprised by the results, but I see that as a great benefit of my system. I’m not a big fan of those things, and one of the reasons I love sports is that you don’t need technology to enjoy them.
So, the first game came on and I was happy. Liverpool vs. Everton. It’s a biggie for supporters as the teams play in the same city and you could hear the excitement in the crowd as the derby got underway. Then, when Liverpool full-back Trent AlexanderArnold narrowly missed the top left corner with a long-range blast, the crowd noise rose in anticipation of a goal.
Or, at least, that’s how it sounded. But that could not possibly have been the case. It was clear from the picture, and from the social distancing rules that had been attached to the resumption of the season, that there were no fans in the stadium. So, what was happening? Who or what was making all the noise?
Well, the Premier League and the tv stations who have paid for rights to broadcast the remaining games got together and decided it would be a good idea to add fake, computer generated crowd effects to the telecasts. Evidently, a slight majority of viewers polled by the BBC thought that was okay. Not wonderful, but okay; so, for the remainder of the semi-lockdown season, football games and highlight shows are going to sound like American sit-coms.
Great; more technology. First, we got a Video Assisted Referee system that isn’t used when common sense tells us it should be, and now it’s background noises that don’t match up with the scenes we see with our eyes. This is the kind of stuff I’ve been hoping to avoid.
Although come to think of it, I have been using my TV, cable system and box recorder to watch the games whenever I wanted to, so I guess I have been taking advantage of technology all along. Does that mean my argument is flawed?
If it does, then I suppose things really have gone back to normal.