Dana White is working on getting a private island to host UFC fights and MLB is working on plans to play the season at stadiums in the Phoenix area without crowds. The NCAA were going to play March Madness without crowds but dropped it after Duke and Kansas pulled out. Question to Clutchfans. Would y'all be willing to watch broadcast of pro-sports, or high level college sports, without a crowd? Are there particular sports you would watch without a crowd? Are there sports you might prefer without a crowd?
I watched the last UFC without a crowd. Didn’t make a large difference at all to me. I’m looking forward to next weeks card. Finally some live action!
NBA. Now we can pick up player noise more. It would eventually get boring after a while though -- just isn't as hyped without crowds getting into it.
Yea, of course, I'd watch all the regular sports I usually watch without a crowd. I like the crowd but it's not that big a deal.
Right before the end of sports a few weeks ago, I watched the last remaining live events on American tv...Mexican League soccer matches. The play was interesting to watch...but after goals were scored, there was something seriously missing with the empty stadiums. Funny thing about all of this...I missed sports the first few days. Now...a few weeks later...not so much (although I'm really hoping college sports can pick back up...the pros...who cares). And...Dana White...white collar mobster. edit: Just read @Poloshirtbandit 's post...he wins the internet for today.
when streaming eventually becomes more important than attendance. we'll start to see more events in front of picturesque backdrops.
I'll get it started. I would only watch certain sports. With sports like football, baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer the crowd adds a lot to the atmosphere. Whether it is the home team firing up their crowd or the road team silencing the crowd. Especially in college sports the traditions of things like the 12th Man, the Long Grey Line, Cameron Crazies, Roll Tide! etc.. are integral parts of the whole college game day experience. On the other hand I think there are many sports particularly individual sports where the crowd doesn't add much or could even distract. Tennis could work without a crowd and while I'm not a big golf fan I wouldn't appreciate it more or less without the polite crowd clap and especially without the guys yelling "GET IN THE HOLE!" during a long putt. Then there are many of the extreme sports where there isn't a crowd anyway or it is so spread out there isn't much of an effect. For example skiing. For me MMA is another sport that I could watch without a crowd. Part of that is since I have a martial arts background I'm much more interested in the technical aspects of the sport than in appreciating the crowd reactions.
That's painfully funny. For those of us who are older I remember watching Stros games in the early 80's in the Astrodome.. While Minute Maid is larger the Astrodome felt more cavernous especially day games where you were under this twilight. Even worse was watching Twins games in the Metrodome. That was a bland boring stadium with a grey garbage bag on top. Add on a small crowd and mediocre baseball it was bad. At least at the Astrodome you had a cool ceiling to look at.
Watching sports without a crowd would be awesome, imo. Basketball, for instance. You can hear the players calling out different defensive assignments, coaches audibly barking out orders, etc. All that communication on the floor is drowned out by the crowd, broadcasters and other factors. It'd be as if we were all scouts watching an intense scrimmage. The only bad thing, I supposed, would be that you'd hear the players swear more too (lol) which wouldn't be great for the kids watching.
I honestly don't even notice crowd noise when watching on TV. I might make an observation like, where is the crowd or the crowd sucks but I get absorbed right back into the action. If there is not going to be crowds they should really find an arean, stadium in a city where all the players can just reside there temporarily. No need to travel other than the initial trip. An Arena with a built in hotel so they can basically sequester themselves there and play all the games in the same area/stadium for the rest of the season. I'm pretty sure it's been brought up before. Rotate 2 TV crews and play games back to back. Well football stadiums can probably split and run 2 basketball games concurrently.
I’d be really interested to see how they handle area sound effects. The nba would be 5x more enjoyable if the court mics were forefront. Sneakers, ball bouncing, players communicating, especially trash talk. That’s my dream telecast. Keep the arena music and Marc Jackson low volume in the background.
I can see some coaches demanding that TV deliberately obscure what is being said. Not so much for the swearing, although leagues might want that, but that they don't want opponents getting their calls. Consider in a completely quiet stadium it probably wouldn't be hard to hear the coach even in a sideline huddle.
At this point, I'll watch the same sports with crowds or without, as I did before It takes a huge dynamic out of organized sports but for now its a necessary beginning to getting back to normal
A crowd signals to television viewers that something "important" is going on. You take the crowd away from a baseball game and I don't think many will tune in. Golf would really suffer too. Sports like basketball, where you have guys constantly in motion and scoring nonstop, would do okay. Same with guys beating on each other, IMO. The networks will have to do a better job talking-up players and giving viewers glimpses into their off court/field lives, though, if they want to keep people interested. If leagues like the NBA can get the owners on board and allow the teams to compete outside their arenas, they might actually be able to come up with a better product.
baseball crowds are generally quiet other than the playoffs or if its a walk off/close type situation. Constant noise isn't being made throughout the course of a regular season game in baseball. Generally, baseball is already seen as a "boring" sport. crowd doesn't impact that much as far as viewing.
Yes, I would watch without the usual Arena crowd, but can they at least put some cheerleaders 6 ft apart?
