Will Sports Return Without Fans in the Seats?

Are professional and collegiate athletics getting ready to re-open for action....without fannies in the seats? How will these games with no fans look and sound? How should a broadcaster handle this unique broadcasting situation? And how will this setup affect the teams and players playing the games?

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As an aspiring or established sports broadcaster, a podcast is a great way to help you improve your skill and get your work out to the public! At Sportscasters Club, we use Buzzsprout to host our online radio show, most importantly because it is the easiest and quickest solution out there.
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Transcript

spk_0:   0:00
what will broadcast look like? And what will a broadcast sound like with no crowd in the stands? Can

spk_2:   0:09
they do it? Welcome to the Sportscasters Klub radio show, where it's all about becoming a better sportscaster on a better sports fan. And now your host, Rick Schulz. Welcome to the Sportscasters Club online radio show. I am Rick Schulz. Thank you so much for joining us. We've got a an interesting theme today. It's gonna be

spk_0:   0:51
part one of a two part series. We're going to talk about one of the current events

spk_2:   0:55
that's going on kind of this really what's

spk_0:   0:59
overtaken the sports world right now. The fact that obviously sports are shut down sports are not taking place as we record this. Professional sports and collegiate athletics are shut down because of the Corona virus. But there is talk about leagues opening up on the horizon, whether that be May June, July, August, September, whenever that is. And a lot of the talk surrounds playing perhaps in neutral locations and even in arenas and ball parks and stadiums without crowds. And so we're gonna touch on that in this two part series, we're going to talk about what that could look like, What it could sound like, how it affects the broadcast and how to go about in part two. We're going to talk about how do you maximize the quality of your your sound and your crowd noise, whether it be right now or also in normal times when you have a crowd? And so that's something that in the lower levels it's something usually you're taking care of by yourself when you don't have an engineer. So we're gonna touch on that in part two. But today we're gonna talk about just the possibility of playing games with no crowds. We're gonna talk about what that will look like, what it will sound like, how it will affect the players and, most importantly, how that could affect the broadcast, the look, the sound and your job as a sports broadcaster. So it's kind of a timely top topic, an interesting topic right now, some unique times we're living through, and that's what we're going to talk about in this part one. And then in the Part two, which will come up in our next episode before I get into the meat of today's broadcast, we host our podcast on. Obviously you're listening, whether it be on your phone, your device right through the Internet, wherever you happen to listen to us. But the name of our host that we used to host this podcast, this online radio show they're called Buzz Sprout and Buzz Sprout makes it so simple and easy for anyone to host the podcast. That's why we use them. And if you would like to expand your broadcasting horizons, perhaps start a podcast of your own. It's very easy, especially when you use bus sprout, they hold your hands, check out the show notes for this episode. I'll put a link in there. If you click on that link, you'll be directed right to Bus Sprouts Website to take a look at what they offer. It hardly costs anything at all. They make it so easy for you to track how many listeners you have, and they make it so simple for you to upload new episodes. So for anyone who's new to podcasting, it is the certainly that provided that I recommend, and that's why I use them buzz proud. So go to the show notes. Check it out, take a look at that link, and I think it's a great tool for broadcasters to stay sharp during this period. I mean, you've seen ah, huge influx in the number of podcasts across all industries, but certainly the sports industry. But it's also a great way, even in good times, even in normal times to expand your reach, to expand your communication skills. And I think podcasting has been awesome. We are almost two episode number 20. We started at the beginning of this year because we wanted to enhance and communicate in a way that that maybe we haven't been able to over the past 10 years since we started sportscasters club dot com. And so we're able to answer your questions here. It's been great, spent a lot of fun. We've gotten into the interviews as well. We're gonna have a lot more interesting interviews coming up later this year, so tune into our show and again check out the show notes. If you're interested in perhaps hosting a podcast of your own, today's program is specifically aimed at this. This new norm that we're in right now, people are in their homes, there's no sports, so it's funny when when the Michael Jordan last dance show was on ESPN, it was like that. I was like the Super Bowl, because people have nothing else toe watch or listen to. You can only watch or listen to so many sports debate shows. Theo, NFL draft. As I record this, the draft is coming up in just a couple days, and that's gonna be a huge story. But it's not gonna be what it was because you're not gonna have the crowd in the live involvement that you've always been accustomed to. And that's really the case. Hopefully, when we get back to live sports leagues, air talking about playing their games, either number one in a in a venue. That's maybe in a place that hasn't been affected by the virus as much. Arizona is a name that's of a state that's been thrown out there as a location That's not New York. It's not L A. It's not Louisiana Detroit. It's some place that hasn't been relatively hit as much of some of these other venues, but the league's air talking about possibly starting by having teams play games without any fans in the seats. No Fannies in the seats.

spk_1:   6:14
So how will that how will that work?

spk_0:   6:17
Will it work? How's it going to affect the players? Well, how's it gonna look and sound? Because we're gonna talk about it from a broadcasting point of view, I think it's gonna look and sound very, very strange. Fans are gonna tune into a game, and by the way, I don't think it's a bad idea. I think it's actually a good intermediate step before having crowds streaming into arenas in ballpark. I think it's just smart to take that dip. Your toe in the water gets started that way because let's face it, Most people consume their sports at home on TV, streaming radio, as opposed to in the stands the number of people that are in a A ballpark watching a game. It's small compared to the number who tune in tow, watch or listen. So number one you're gonna immediately turn on those revenue streams again for leagues and teams. You're gonna get players out there playing games and fans are going to be able to consume it and consume it. They will. They'll buy packages that they didn't have. They will consume things, enjoined groups and get streaming services. Maybe they didn't have, so they'll be able to watch or listen. Or however they want to follow their games, sports betting will take on immediate hit immediate jump. Rather, it's gonna increase because all this pent up demand people that want to bet on their games they wanna bet on how many strikeouts Jacob program will have, you know, and all the different prop bets and all the different in game bets you can do with so many sites, depending on where you live so that industry will resume and come back to life. The sports gaming industry. But in the stands, if there are no fans, it's gonna look different. It's gonna sound different. It's going to sound, I think. I think, on radio it may be affected even more than on TV, because on television you can craft the broadcast to show less of the stands, less of the fans. And in fact, that's been a big pet peeve of mine going back decades too many times, a TV broadcast will have shots of the fans in the crowd when, as a viewer, I want to watch the game. When I turned into a game. I'm there to watch the game. I'm not there to watch the two drunk bozo's in the fifth row, acting like morons. That's not why I'm tuned into a TV broadcast. I'm there to watch the game, and I've always felt that the cutaway shots of the crowd are very much over used in most television broadcast. Not all but most so. I think in TV you can really Taylor your television broadcast in a way and show shots in a way that minimize the fact that there are no fans in the seats on radio, however, and with the audio part of a television broadcast, that's where you're going to notice it. Because on radio crowd noise fills a lot of dead space, especially in baseball. In a baseball broadcast, you don't have to speak the entire time because someone can tune in on the radio. And then it can hear the crowd. That subtle hum of the crowd noise. You may not hear words you may not hear crackerjack or hot dogs here are or fans cheering for their specific players. But you can hear that that it's not a roared, so it's a not a murmur somewhere in between. It's a low, a low roar, a low hum of the crowd, very soothing, if you ask me. And in part two of this series, we're gonna talk about how to get optimal crowd levels and how to get optimal crowd sounds into your audio radio broadcasts. But that's gonna be a big challenge, because it's gonna sound so strange. So on radio, if you're broadcasting in the minor leagues, foreign professional baseball, for that matter. But let's say you're in the minor leagues and there's no crowd at all. You may have the tendency to want to talk more because dead air really will be dead air. It won't be filled by the crowd, and you may actually pick up things on the field. I can remember. I can remember, really. Watertown, New York Probably 1995. Bump. Wills was managing for the Hudson Valley Renegades and coaching third base and at the Duffy Fairgrounds in Watertown, where the game was taking place. My broadcast view was sitting right on top of the third base dugout. That's where the Booth Waas, and so it was like I can recall it being so quiet at one point that I could hear the words bump. Wills was shouting at the third base coach's box coming through my crowd. Mike, my listeners could hear it, and he was full of a lot of great information that he was shouting to his team. So it helped. It helped the overall broadcast. I loved hearing it, and interestingly enough, I remember Bump and I talking back and forth because we were so close. That was maybe 20 feet between my broadcast perspective on the third base dugout and where he was in the third base coach's box. So that was pretty interesting when you get to talk to ah coach right there when they're on the field taking part in the game. But the point of the reason I bring it up is without the crowd. You're going to hear more of that. You may hear a player shouting a direction or or something. You're gonna hear a lot more of the sneakers on the basketball court because there's no crowd to drown it out. So you're going to hear a lot of the squeaks. You may hear an occasional curse word, because even in a huge arena, depending on where your crowd mikes are placed. If a player let's say, goes in for Ah, big lay up and gets fouled hard you may hear a guy curse. You may hear, ah, grunt or a groan or or shouting and those kind of things that go on on the court, things you don't normally hear. So that will be very interesting. And I'm sure the engineers and the the technical folks are gonna do what they have to do to make those things appropriate, whether you hear him or don't. But the point of the matter is, it's gonna be different on TV, not as big of a deal, because you can go with those narrow shots that really focus on the court. Focus on the ice Focus on the baseball field From a vantage point where you don't see so much of the crowd missing center field camera, you're going to see no fans behind. Home plate is gonna seem strange. It's gonna feel like spring training, or it's gonna feel like some of the college games I played in when there's nobody there. But the truth of the matter is they can. They can minimize that to some degree on radio. It's going toe, I think, force radio broadcasters, I think, to fight the urge to have to fill that dead air. I think as a radio broadcaster, you want to continue with your same cadence, your same rhythm that you've always had. And so that's gonna be the key. Even though there's no crowd there and no crowd. Mike, no crowd noise. Maintain your broadcast as usual, You still want to call the action, as you always did with your play by play on radio. You just won't have the crowd to rely on to fill those dead spaces and to amplify and excite your listeners as you make a call. But your job should still be the same. And in fact, you may not have to get as high or as low, because it you won't have to to speak over a crowd. You won't have to amplify over a crowd, and so I think

spk_1:   14:10
it's gonna take some

spk_0:   14:11
getting used to for a broadcaster. Certainly, it's not gonna be something that is going to sound natural the first time they do it, but if that's gonna be you out there broadcasting a game with no crowd. These were some of the things you want to keep in mind and consider lastly. And as I mentioned in Part two of this series, we're going to talk about specifically some of the keys to getting good crowd noise when you're broadcasting. But let's talk about how this may affect the action on the court or on the field. The fact that there are no fans is it going to have an impact at all? Well, my point of view is, I guess it's specific to the sport. Basketball players are going to be in the action, and I think for the most part, when they when there live on the court, the balls live and they're moving and they're playing, I don't think it's gonna affect them too much. The fact that there's no crowd, I think where it may is in a spot, you know, tie game. 30 seconds left in the game. Team needs a big defensive stop having the crowd behind you in your home arena. Can I give you a little a little something extra? A little where you can go a little deeper into the tank for some energy late in the game, too, to maybe give you some energy and give you, you know, that extra level toe to move your game to defensively, specifically, I don't know, maybe possibly can. So in that case, I think it may have an effect on the baseball field. I don't know if it's gonna have as much of an effect as it. It'll sound. It was just seem weird for players to be playing with no crowd noise. I mean, think about it. Most baseball players, at some point in their life, played when there were hardly any fans. Whether it was Little League College, huh? The minor leagues, the In many cases, they didn't have a lot of fans in the seats. So that noise from Ah fan base, the noise from the crowd is not whether it's there or not. There is not going affect them that much. There certainly used to though the large crowds and used to that. But I think in baseball it's going to affect you less even than basketball. I don't think it's gonna be a big thing at all football. We've seen some some professional football stadiums where crowd noise is a factor, Onley in that a quarterback has trouble communicating with his team offensively, calling signs, calling audibles. And so that is where the crowd noise for a home team and that home court advantage may be less than it normally would be. And it may in fact, be zero. We may see that home field advantage be zero, because without, you know, I've never felt a crowd does all that much to add to their teams win loss record. I think a lot of it is just that the fact that you're comfortable, you're familiar with your surroundings, that has much to do with it as the actual crowd. But you can make a case as I mentioned earlier, late in the game tie game. You need a big defensive stop in a basketball contest, and having that crowd behind you maybe allows you to have a little extra energy. Or, in the case of football, being so loud where the opposing quarterback can't communicate with his team, call a play call inaudible. That might be a factor, but for the most part I don't think it is too big of a factor. So I think in general the effect on the players is going to be mild at best. I don't think it's gonna have much effect. I think it's gonna be a learning curve for broadcasters that they will be able to overcome. And they'll be thrilled to be out there six feet from each other, broadcasting the game and more than anything else, I think as a sports community, as a as a nation, we're going to be so happy to have sports back. We're going to tune in, we're gonna watch. We're gonna listen. We're going to subscribe. We're going to read all the things that we do. With the exception of going live to a game we're going to dio initially and then shortly after that. It certainly seems like we'll be able to be back in arenas and stadiums to some regard, whether you have less people, whether you leave seats in between each seat, so you have every other seat empty. I don't know people, people a lot smarter than me are making those decisions. But from a broadcasters point of view, it's gonna be a learning curve and just another interesting thing you're gonna have to deal with in your career. Well, we're gonna have part two of this series, and in just a minute I will tell you what we're gonna cover in the next episode.

spk_1:   19:05
If you're enjoying the show, check out our seven hour online sports broadcasting course. We cover play by play, talk show, hosting television and much more. Visit Sportscasters club dot com and click on online sportscasting glass.

spk_2:   19:23
Welcome back to Sportscasters Club online radio show. I am Rick Schulz, and before we wrap this one up, I wanted to let you know that next episode will be Part

spk_0:   19:32
two. So today we talked about some of the ramifications of professional and or college sports starting back up without crowds in the seats and how this is going to affect players and how. Certainly it's going to affect the broadcaster. But next time we're going to talk about in normal times, how

spk_1:   19:52
do you

spk_0:   19:54
use a crowd to your advantage on a radio broadcast?

spk_2:   19:57
How do you get excellent crowd noise? How do you use that to make your broadcast stand out and

spk_0:   20:04
make it sound even better to your listeners?

spk_2:   20:06
So we're going to cover that next time. Thank you very much for listening to this episode. of the Sportscasters Club online radio show. We did not touch on any questions from you today but continued to send them in as usual to questions at sportscasters club dot com. Again, it's been a pleasure being with you today. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in part two next time. Thanks for listening to the Sportscasters Klub radio show at sportscasters club dot com. Don't forget to subscribe, so you will never miss an episode. And thanks for liking sharing, boasting reviews and spreading the word.