I'd love this:
Here’s a suggestion when sports return: Wire everything for sound - The Boston Globe
I have one request for all of the sports television executives who are sorting through the complex logistics and trying to figure out how to make their broadcasts as compelling as possible when our favorite sports return.
Give us that authentic audio, all of it. Give us the real in-game candor. Give us the real sounds of the game, and especially give us the trashiest of trash-talk, even if it requires a 10-second delay to filter out all of the four-letter words.
Mike up everything and everyone — the players, the referees, the coaches, and anyone else who happens to be inside the almost certainly fan- and broadcaster-free venues.
Mike up the inanimate things too, especially on those NBA broadcasts, like the court (more ambient noise of squeaking sneakers, please), the rim, and even the Lopez twins.
The television networks that hold the broadcast rights to the major professional sports leagues — as well as golf, tennis, and many other sports — have an opportunity worth seizing here.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lingering uncertainty of what’s to come guarantees that sports broadcasts will be different. How different depends on how creative the various networks want to get to make them appealing at a time when there will be no cheering crowds to spark emotions and set the mood.
From this vantage point, miking up as many people as possible is the most obvious way to add some intrigue and flavor to the broadcasts. I think sometimes we forget how much talking is actually going on during the game, especially in the NFL, where we almost never get to hear what one player says to another after a big hit or important play.
But that’s not the only way to enhance the broadcasts. During a recent conversation, Jack Edwards, the Bruins play-by-play voice on NESN, suggested having mobile cameras connected to cables tracking players up and down the ice, almost as if the viewer is part of the play with them. That’s something that wouldn’t be possible with fans in, say, the Garden, because the cameras would constantly interfere with the sight lines in the lower bowl.
Here’s a suggestion when sports return: Wire everything for sound - The Boston Globe
I have one request for all of the sports television executives who are sorting through the complex logistics and trying to figure out how to make their broadcasts as compelling as possible when our favorite sports return.
Give us that authentic audio, all of it. Give us the real in-game candor. Give us the real sounds of the game, and especially give us the trashiest of trash-talk, even if it requires a 10-second delay to filter out all of the four-letter words.
Mike up everything and everyone — the players, the referees, the coaches, and anyone else who happens to be inside the almost certainly fan- and broadcaster-free venues.
Mike up the inanimate things too, especially on those NBA broadcasts, like the court (more ambient noise of squeaking sneakers, please), the rim, and even the Lopez twins.
The television networks that hold the broadcast rights to the major professional sports leagues — as well as golf, tennis, and many other sports — have an opportunity worth seizing here.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lingering uncertainty of what’s to come guarantees that sports broadcasts will be different. How different depends on how creative the various networks want to get to make them appealing at a time when there will be no cheering crowds to spark emotions and set the mood.
From this vantage point, miking up as many people as possible is the most obvious way to add some intrigue and flavor to the broadcasts. I think sometimes we forget how much talking is actually going on during the game, especially in the NFL, where we almost never get to hear what one player says to another after a big hit or important play.
But that’s not the only way to enhance the broadcasts. During a recent conversation, Jack Edwards, the Bruins play-by-play voice on NESN, suggested having mobile cameras connected to cables tracking players up and down the ice, almost as if the viewer is part of the play with them. That’s something that wouldn’t be possible with fans in, say, the Garden, because the cameras would constantly interfere with the sight lines in the lower bowl.
