Tag: Crowd Noise

Raiders legend Tim Brown on playing Chiefs: ‘Kansas City had some of the smartest fans in the game’

Hall of Fame WR Tim Brown told #Chiefs Wire that “Kansas City had some of the smartest fans in the game” during his time with the #Raiders

The Kansas City Chiefs have faced their share of Hall of Fame opponents over the years, but perhaps none were more difficult to handle than then-Oakland and Los Angeles Raider receiver Tim Brown.

Brown, who recently sat down with Chiefs Wire’s Ed Easton Jr. for a lengthy interview, recounted his time playing against Kansas City during his time with the Raiders.

While the noise factor at Arrowhead Stadium noise is often discussed as the ultimate home-field advantage, Brown was one of many visiting players who felt the crushing weight of 100-plus decibels first hand.

“I’m on record as saying over the years that I’ve always thought that Kansas City had some of the smartest fans in the game,”  Brown explained to Easton. “They knew when to cheer and when not to cheer, and when something came on board for everybody gonna get quiet. They all got quiet, and at the same time, you look at that stadium. It’s an old school stadium where they’re pretty close to you.

“It’s one of the only places that I played that I would tape up my earhole of the helmet, just to try and cut back on some of that noise you hear. That fan base is incredible, man; they’re getting rewarded for a whole bunch of work that the boys did back in the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s because they deserve what they’re getting. And it’s a beautiful thing for it to happen. At the same time, my Raiders fans and boys need some love, too. So, I’m hoping that our boys can certainly help us out.”

The now-Las Vegas Raiders have the advantage of playing in a dome to amplify their crowd’s roars, but to hear Brown tell it, nothing can compare to the deafening sound of tens of thousands of Kansas Citians on their feet for a rivalry matchup.

Bucs WR Chris Godwin shares unique perspective on Saints home games

Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin says playing the Saints at home presents a challenging environment inside the Caesars Superdome:

We hear a lot from New Orleans Saints fans, players, and coaches about the team’s strong homefield advantage — but it’s awful cathartic to hear it from the opposing sideline. Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin is set to make his latest trip to the Caesars Superdome on Sunday, and he shared a unique perspective on the matchup during his Wednesday media availability session after practice.

“It’s always a fun time when we get to play the Saints. When you go into that stadium, you know what you’re getting into,” Godwin began. “Those fans, they have that stadium rocking. There’s no windows in there. It’s like they go in and they lock the doors behind you, and it’s just you and your guys going to battle. Let’s figure it out.”

Godwin has played six games in New Orleans during his seven-year career, winning just twice (he was also inactive for their Week 2 victory last season due to an injury), including the playoffs. He knows exactly how loud that stadium can be and how many challenges the crowd noise creates for communication on offense.

And there’s a note of appreciation in his voice when talking about it. Godwin played for Penn State in college, where more than 100,000 fans crowd Beaver Stadium each week. That’s not an environment he’s been able to enjoy with the Buccaneers, whose fair-weather fanbase didn’t show up for games until Tom Brady came to town. Tampa Bay ranked 30th in home attendance during each of Godwin’s first two years in the NFL. Maybe he should consider switching sides once he’s free from his contract with the Bucs?

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Two moments in LSU’s win over Alabama registered on a seismograph

Death Valley shook on Saturday night.

Death Valley is known as one of the loudest venues in all of college football. And at the end of Saturday night’s upset win over the Crimson Tide, the valley shook.

Two moments during the game registered a 133-decibel reading that was picked up by a nearby seismograph in LSU’s geology department: First, when Jayden Daniels scored a 25-yard rushing touchdown on the Tigers’ first offensive play in overtime, and again three minutes later when LSU successfully went for two and the win following that score.

It was a chaotic scene in Tiger Stadium as the packed house of fans stormed the field following the conversion.

The team operating the device was able to use video from the game to corroborate the exact moments for the surge. It’s the second time Tiger Stadium’s noise has been picked up by the LSU seismograph this year, with the first coming at the Garth Brooks concert during the song “Callin’ Baton Rouge.”

Death Valley is universally regarded as one of the toughest places to play in college football, and it certainly lived up to its reputation on Saturday night, providing a home-field advantage that guided LSU to one of its biggest wins in years.

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Broncos will use fake crowd noise on Monday Night Football

The Broncos will pump in fake crowd noise when they host the Titans on Monday Night Football.

The Denver Broncos won’t have fans at Empower Field at Mile High when they host the Tennessee Titans on Monday Night Football in Week 1. It will sound like fans are at the stadium — both on TV and in person.

The NFL will allow teams that don’t have fans in attendance to pump in fake crowd noise this season.

“The crowd noise is fine,” Broncos coach Vic Fangio said on Sept. 8. “I actually think it kind of helps simulate the feel that you get from being in the stadium. Obviously, there’s no replacing the 70-plus-thousand fans and the energy they bring to it.

“I think what will be different than the two practices we had down there, and it will be very obvious to everyone, especially the players and us as coaches — once there’s another team in that stadium that we’re going against it will change the dynamics.”

Denver will be allowed to host a limited amount of fans when the Broncos face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 3.

“I think everybody will be looking forward to having the fans there,” safety Kareem Jackson said on Sept. 8. “Having fans is an added element of excitement. Not saying we won’t be excited Week 1 without having fans. Monday night is enough to get us going. It’ll be interesting to see.

“Obviously with the league noise — me and some of the guys were talking about it. It’s always a certain point throughout a play where everything goes silent and you’re locked in on your job. Whether it’s the league noise or fans, I don’t think it’ll matter. We still have to go out and execute as if the stadium was full.”

Monday’s game will be nationally televised on ESPN at 8:20 p.m. MT.

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Cowboys ticket sales crash, NFL to use pre-recorded crowd noise at games

As the Cowboys saw ticket sales marred by technical difficulties, the league has announced a plan to pipe in crowd noise on gamedays.

The Dallas Cowboys are trying to make sure their gamedays look- at least partially- like they’re supposed to. And the league is ensuring that its stadiums will sound somewhat like the NFL on Sundays.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has expressed how important it is for his club to “put the show on” in this COVID-stained season. For the ringmaster-in-chief of America’s Team, that unquestionably also means having paying customers in the seats.

While many stadiums across the league have already vowed to play the regular season in front of an empty house, Jones has promised that AT&T Stadium will be open for business on Sundays this fall, to at least a percentage of the venue’s full capacity. Season ticket holders were supposed to get their first chance at claiming seats for Cowboys home games on Thursday.

Like so much of the rest of 2020, it fell apart in short order.

Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News has reported that the online platform used by SeatGeek “experienced issues” shortly after the sales window opened and was subsequently shut down, with ticket sales suspended until further notice.

“In reaction to COVID-19, SeatGeek built a custom ticket-buying experience that keeps fans safe and adheres to local and state safety guidelines around social distancing,” SeatGeek wrote in a statement. “Fan safety is paramount for SeatGeek and the Cowboys. While we are excited to pioneer this new technology, SeatGeek and the Cowboys made the joint decision to pause the on-sale until early next week to offer an improved user experience.

“We look forward to resuming the on-sale and helping as many fans as safely possible attend an event at AT&T Stadium this season.”

The Cowboys sent out an email of their own, just two hours after tickets were supposed to have gone on sale.

“We apologize for the technical difficulties with SeatGeek regarding the Dallas Cowboys single game ticket on-sale this morning and are working through these issues,” the team stated. “Rest assured that you have not missed out on purchasing any games for the on-sale. Once the issue has been resolved and is fully functioning, we will email you when you are able to go back online to purchase. Thank you for your patience, and we apologize for this inconvenience.”

Fans who already own Cowboys season tickets will be allowed to purchase up to six tickets for up to three of the team’s eight home games this regular season. The seats will be grouped into pods around the stadium to ensure proper social distancing on gameday, and ticketholders will not be permitted to re-sell seats within a purchased pod.

It is not clear exactly how many fans will be permitted into AT&T Stadium during games in 2020. Jones has said he will follow state guidelines regarding crowd sizes, but has declined to specify a number prior to the Week 2 home opener. Texas law currently would allow 50% capacity.

But Gehlken also reports that there is some grumbling about ticket prices under the new system.

“On social media,” he writes, “some season-ticket holders complained Thursday about the ticket prices in certain sections. A SeatGeek spokesperson confirmed that four of the stadium’s 14 sections are priced higher than they were in 2019. The other 10 seat sections remained flat.”

AT&T Stadium may be at half-capacity, and other sites fanless, for games this fall, but the NFL’s venues will at least sound like they normally do… mostly. The league will attempt to emulate the gameday experience for the players, coaches, and TV audiences by piping in crowd noise during games.

According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the league will provide a recording of crowd noise “specific to each team’s stadium that must be played over the PA system,” whether the venue is hosting live fans or not. The league will also monitor the volume level at which the looped noise is played back, to ensure a stadium operator can’t use the sound effects to provide an unfair edge to the home team or unfairly disrupt the visitors during play.

“Per the memo,” notes Jack Baer of Yahoo Sports, “teams will not be allowed to play their crowd noise at a sound greater than 70 decibels, and their total output (think crowd noise while music is playing) cannot exceed 75 decibels. That’s roughly analogous to the noise of a vacuum cleaner and well below the triple-digit readings seen at stadiums of teams like the Seattle Seahawks and Kansas City Chiefs.”

Commissioner Roger Goodell maintained just this week that the league believes there will be no competitive advantage for teams who have live fans in attendance compared to clubs who play in empty stadiums.

The Cowboys’ first home game is set for September 20 as they face the Atlanta Falcons. The team has not yet set a new date for online ticket sales to resume.

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Broncos will use fake crowd noise at stadium practice

The Broncos will use fake crowd noise at Saturday’s stadium practice.

With no preseason games this summer, the Broncos will try to simulate a game-like atmosphere during Saturday’s practice at Empower Field at Mile High. The practice session will include pumped-in crowd noise.

With many teams not allowing fans this season, the NFL is considering allowing fake crowd noise. The details still have to be ironed out but Denver will start the process on Saturday.

“We’re going to have — I’m not sure what the crowd noise rules are,” Broncos coach Vic Fangio said after practice Friday. “I’m hearing different things, but whatever they are, we’re going to have the crowd noise in there that I think you’re going to be allowed to use for stadiums that have no fans.

“Obviously, we’re doing it so our offense will experience it in the stadiums that we’re playing in with no fans. Then the defense will be able to experience the noise we’ll use at home games.”

Denver will not have a “scrimmage” on Saturday but the team will try to make the practice feel like a game as much as possible. Players will go through pregame warmups and run through kickoffs. The ball will be spotting at different parts of the field to start drives and the team will practice punts and field goals.

The Broncos will even simulate halftime, sending players into the locker room for a 10-minute break before coming back out to warm up.

“We’ll be in there for 10 minutes, come back out, let them get loose like they would have to in a real game, kick if off for the second half and repeat that same sequence,” Fangio said.

“[We’ll] put the ball in different spots to try and hit all the situations. I’ll control the down and distance a lot just to try and make sure we hit some situations that way. We’re going to try and make it as game-like as we can.”

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What Tuesday’s Bundesliga match can tell us about what college football will look like this fall

FS1 aired a Bundesliga match on Tuesday between Borussia Dortmund and FC Bayern Munich, the mark of live sports beginning its…

FS1 aired a Bundesliga match on Tuesday between Borussia Dortmund and FC Bayern Munich, the mark of live sports beginning its return to television and our day-to-day lives.

The game itself doesn’t have much to do with how Badger football games will look this fall but one thing from the broadcast did: FS1’s use of fake crowd noise in lieu of actual fans in attendance.

FOX’s Joe Buck began this conversation two weeks ago when he tweeted that FOX was working on creating virtual fan noise for its NFL broadcasts.

This actually received some backlash as fans from around the country expressed their stance that it would sound unnatural and take away from the product on the field.

Back to FS1’s soccer game broadcast, while the crowd noise did sound a bit weird at first with cheers and chants coming from the empty stands, as the broadcast continued it sounded more and more normal and by the end it made the event feel like one we would expect to see before the pandemic began.

Take this highlight, even though the commentary is in a different language.

While it’s clear that the announcer is still controlling much of the audio time, having cheers and chants in the background during the action and during lull periods normalizes the weird reality of no fans at the game and makes the broadcast infinitely more watchable.

Now what does this have to do with Wisconsin football?

Come September when the Badgers will potentially be able to begin their season there is an increasing likelihood that fans will not be able to be at the games.

For all of us watching at home, then, having noise in the background– especially during a time when cheering would normally occur–is what will become the reality and will help bring sports fans back to at least a resemblance of normalcy.

Will a virtual “jump around” do a true justice? Highly doubtful.

But FOX’s use of virtual crowd noise will be our reality this fall and will help, not hurt, the broadcast of college and NFL football.

Expect crowd noise pumped into broadcasts of games with no fans

Expect crowd noise pumped into broadcasts of games with no fans for the NFL and other pro sports leagues

Hopefully it never comes to this with the Cleveland Browns or the NFL, but if the team is forced to play in an empty stadium, it won’t be without noise for the fans watching at home. According to the Sports Business Journal, the broadcast networks have decided that they will inject artificial crowd noise into the telecast.

It might be crowd noise that the players on the field, or court or ice, could also hear while they’re competing. Or it could be a musical score or a sports version of a laugh track, based on what SBJ’s John Ourand heard from network producers.

“We are looking at more than just pumping in audio,” said Brad Zager, Fox Sports’ executive producer, executive vice president and head of production and operations. “We’re looking at trying to figure out how to score a game live. How do we make sure that we have something that sounds authentic?”

For a cavernous outdoor facility like FirstEnergy Stadium, the thought of hearing artificial crowd noise during a game seems very strange. Also, would the team be allowed to increase the volume when the opposing team has the ball, or in critical situations? There are a lot of kinks to get worked out for this (hopefully) hypothetical situation.