Pro sports getting creative with artificial crowd noise
As major professional sports ramp up their returns in the middle of a global pandemic, many will have one thing in common: Their stadiums and arenas will be devoid of fans.
And yet, when a English Premier League soccer player scores a goal or a Major League Baseball star hits a home run, it will at least sound as if the crowd is going wild due to artificial noise on broadcasts and, in some cases, pumped into stadiums. It’s a whole new ballgame for auditory enjoyment of live sporting events — for both fans and athletes.
“People’s sense of immersiveness, the immediacy of their experience, is strongly influenced by sound,” said Laurie Heller, a Carnegie Mellon University psychology professor specializing in auditory perception. “... When it works right, you get completely immersed. Sound is as much of a part of that as vision.”
There are scientific reasons why a bit of fanfare enhances live sporting events, whether in person or on television. As Heller noted, crowd noise draws fans’ attention to big plays, increases excitement levels and serves as an auditory connection with every single person watching.
“In terms of the cognitive-emotional effects on the viewer, [crowd noise is] very real and underappreciated by people,” she said.
For the most part, Heller is all for the concept of fake crowd noise to re-create those sensations as much as possible, but she is concerned about a potential “audiovisual disconnect” when there’s a loud cheer on a broadcast but the camera potentially pans to rows of empty seats.
In addition, there’s another academic concept at play here that most sports fans likely would’ve never thought of: arousal.
Irene Frieze, a professor emeritus of psychology at Pitt specializing in motivation and women’s studies, explained that pheromones released by sports fans communicate their “aggressive arousal” at the event they’re watching, which fuels their competitive fervor.
“When they have the games now, it’s lacking all forms of stimulation,” Frieze said. “It’s lacking the sight of the people, it’s lacking the noise that’s going on. All of these things contribute to your arousal. They can’t do much about the pheromones, but they can try to add those other two forms of stimulation.”
Bag of tricks
Each of the big four American pro sports leagues — the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL — has had discussions on how to address the lack of noise in venues this year.
MLB isn’t expected to have fans at games when its regular season begins next week, but some teams, including the Pirates, have experimented with piped-in noise during summer camp. The league said Thursday it will provide its teams prerecorded crowd noise from the “MLB: The Show” video games to use in stadiums.
Some teams, such as the Milwaukee Brewers and Oakland Athletics, are offering fans the chance to have cardboard cutouts purchased and placed around the
stadium. The Pirates are inviting fans to upload photos holding their “rally signs” to the team’s website, with those images of support being displayed in the PNC Park dugout stairwell and clubhouse.
The NBA is reportedly looking into using crowd noise from “NBA 2K” video games in its arenas in Florida, where the season will continue later this month in a “bubble” environment aimed at reducing travel and exposure to others. And NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said recently he has something up his sleeve for hockey’s return next month in Canada — potentially both piped-in crowd noise and computer-generated imagery of fans in seats for TV audiences.
NFL games on Fox may include simulated cheering during broadcasts. As of last week, however, the Steelers were still planning on at least some fans in the stands when the regular season starts.
“Our goal is to still have fans at Heinz Field this year with the understanding that social distancing, as well as all fans being required to wear masks, will play a role in the capacity to ensure a safe atmosphere,” spokesman Burt Lauten said July 8 in a statement. “We will continue to work with the NFL and public health officials to finalize plans for fans to attend our home games.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Health said Friday some teams in the state had submitted plans to have fans in the stands, though the Wolf administration did not reveal the organizations.
A source told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Friday that the Pirates are in the process of putting together a presentation. Officials with the Steelers, Pitt and Riverhounds SC said Friday the teams were continuing to communicate with the governor’s office.
Follow their lead
In many ways, international sports leagues have been ahead of curve.
Korean and Taiwanese baseball teams have filled seats with stuffed animals, mannequins and robots, and the Associated Press said MLB’s cardboard cutout promotions were inspired by a German soccer club that put about 13,000 fan cutouts in the stands when play resumed in May.
The Coppa Italia league utilized CGI fans for its final, though that move largely brought a negative reception from soccer fans worldwide. The English Premier League has been providing fans at home with “atmospheric audio” from the “FIFA 21” video game courtesy of EA Sports. Paul Boechler, an EA Sports audio artist, said his company gave the Premier League about 13 hours of specially curated “FIFA” audio content to work with.
“Through our work on ‘FIFA,’ we’ve been curating a library of thousands of assets and audio content for nearly the past decade, so this was a natural fit based on recordings from actual Premier League stadiums,” Boechler said via email.
Domestic soccer leagues are also giving the big four sports leagues a preview of how simulated crowd noise could work. The National Women’s Soccer League has used fake crowd noise on its CBS All Access broadcasts, while Major League Soccer initially opted to not add any artificial noise before Fox Sports quickly decided to pivot toward faux cheering.
The USL Championship — the league in which the Riverhounds compete — is not employing crowd noise of any kind because many of its teams are still allowing limited numbers of fans at games.
“It’s something we looked at,” said Court Jeske, the USL’s executive vice president. “But because of the fact some of our venues would have some fans in them — even a small number of fans — we felt it was important to authentically present the venue, the look, the feel and any crowd noise that is there.”
The Riverhounds, who play at Highmark Stadium near Station Square, won’t have fans at home matches through at least the month of July, according to director of communications Tony Picardi. Their first home contest is scheduled for July 22 against Indy Eleven.
“I think it’s us having a mindset as a group that we make the best out of every situation,” said coach Bob Lilley, whose team played in front of some fans in the season opener Sunday in Louisville. “And whether that be going on the road, with fans, without fans, the travel, keep the players safe the best we can, prepare as best we can, adapt as best we can. You know, there’s just going to be challenges.”
Player performance
Athletes offered varied responses when asked about the prospect of playing without fans in attendance. Steelers defensive tackle Cam Heyward gave a cheeky answer followed by a serious worry.
“I guess we’re just going to be playing ‘Renegade’ through the entire game,” Heyward said. “... I think one thing that’s going to be interesting to see if we don’t have fans, how teams are going to go about their calling plays and the cadence. The smart ones are going to pick up on that and use it to their advantage, especially in the division.”
Pirates catcher Jacob Stallings brought up a similar concern: “I don’t really want to hear the other teams’ conversations from their dugout, and I don’t want them hearing ours.” And fellow Pirates catcher Luke Maile recently said that “you feel kind of naked out there without having that white noise in the background.”
Trying to stop opponents from hearing strategies that used to be masked by crowd noise — or, for that matter, censoring language in case microphones pick it up — is a big change in players’ “audio privacy,” as Heller put it.
She said that using “cognitive load” on those extracurricular elements of the game could actually affect their performances on the field.
“Cognitive load is important when you’re playing at this high level,” Heller said. “Every little extra cognitive thing you have to do takes away from what cognitive resources they have to play the game. If there’s a piece of you that has to monitor what you’re saying, until people get used to that, that could potentially hurt performance.”
Plus, in the same way fans’ arousal levels will decrease, that could also be the case for the players.
“Sports aren’t fun unless you’re feeling excited or aroused in some way,” she said. “That’s the difference in just kind of running by yourself or doing something in front of an audience. Those other things add to your arousal and can add to your performance.”
For many, though, no amount of fake noise can replace the real thing.
“I’m sorry, you can pump in as much noise as you want, but it’s not going to be the same,” Pirates pitcher Derek Holland said. “It’s going to be very different, no doubt about that.”