The NFL Is Fully Planning On Using Fake Crowd Noise And Virtual Fans This Year

Via John Ourand of Sports Business Journal, FOX’s Joe Buck told Andy Cohen of SiriusXM Radio that “it’s pretty much a done deal” that the FOX and other networks will use fake crowd noise for games played without fans.

Buck also suggested that virtual fans will be used, so that when a wide shot happens the fans at home will see the appearance of a full stadium. Even if it isn’t.

My initial reaction was to say that this stinks. Out loud. Big P U. Hot dog shit on a summer's day type of wretched odor. But the more I'm thinking about it the more I don't hate it. This isn't 1920, despite the fact that an illness has us in the Boston Crab all the same. We have the technology to make shit like this happen

So if we look at this in a non-boring way and have crazy giant birds flying around, maybe extremely team specific virtual realities? I'm ALL the way in. Like if a Chicago home game just had 60,000 bears roaring their dicks off eating salmon in the background? I'm into that. A million revolutionary war characters in the stands at Gillette? Big fan. Thousands of gold miners and prospectors taking in a 49ers game? Let's get it. No one at a Jacksonville Jaguars game? That may turn into the biggest home field advantage in pro sports seeing as they'd be the most used to the environment. 20 years ago I'd be a hard out on this idea. But if we can take some of our finest out of work graphic designers and put them to work crafting some Game of Thrones level dragons flying around making every game a new and exciting acid trip we should do it. We may never have fan-less games again. Or this will become the standard. Either way it's time to experiment and try as many outrageous ideas as possible right now. There are no bad ideas as long as they're accompanied by live sports as far as I'm concerned.