Mid-Season Mini: The NFL’s Fake Crowd Noise Scandal

00:00:31 Speaker 1: Hey, folks, just a quick note before we get started. This week, we're running a mid season mini aka an extra short episode while we take a little breather in preparation for the second half of the season. Don't worry, though, the regular full length Sports dot MP three episodes will return next Thursday. And since I can't leave you with absolute silence, and since the NFL season kicks off today, I thought it fitting to cover a quick story about a sound design scandal in football. So without further ado, let's get into it. At the risk of sounding like a Hotels dot Com captain obvious commercial, the act of watching sports is primarily a visual experience. It's literally in the verb you watch it. But sounds can be just as if not more important. We just don't actively realize how crucial they are. Your eyeballs transmit the visual of a hulking linebacker crushing a running back on your TV screen, yet your ears they're the ones that transmit the sound of the hit, emphasizing its violence and power. Perhaps the most telling statistic that shows just how important sound can be in terms of impacting the game is a simple one home field advantage. According to a twenty twenty five study by Paul Sabin, the NFL has the second largest home field advantage of the four major North American sports leagues, behind the NBA, meaning, on average, teams performed better at their home stadiums than at away games, and while the support of the crowd is just one of many factors that play into that, it's clear that they do provide at least a slight benefit. One issue with crowd noises is that they can be manipulated or faked. During a two thousand and seven game between the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots, viewers watching on the CBS broadcast noticed some suspicious crowd noises during a late game drive. It sounded like the cheers of fans were on loop or repeating over and over again, which could only happen if the audio was being pumped into the stadium artificially. It didn't take long for the incident to turn into a scandal, with opposing fans demanding an investigation into the Colts. As it turns out out, CBS was actually at fault for the glitchy crowd sounds, as their broadcast had accidentally played feedback from earlier audio of the game. Resulting in the odd fake sounding crowd noise. In twenty fifteen, the Atlanta Falcons were accused of the very same thing, and this time the accusation had merit. After an investigation, the NFL confirmed that for two straight years, from twenty thirteen to twenty fourteen, the Falcons had been artificially juicing the Georgia Dome with fake crowd noises. Their director of event marketing had set it up, and the team was eventually slapped with a three hundred fifty thousand dollars fine and the loss of their fifth round draft pick in the twenty sixteen draft. Fans weren't entirely shocked, as conspiracies about fake crowd sounds in stadiums had been floating around for years, even before the Colts scandal in two thousand and seven. What is shocking, and maybe just a tad bit heartbreaking, is that this artificial noise did not pay off for the Falcons. Across the two seasons they used fake sounds, the team had a home record of six wins and nine losses. So if there's one major takeaway, it's that fake crowd noise can't drown out bad football, and that does it for today's mid season mini episode of Sports Dot MP three. As a reminder, i'll be back next Thursday with a return to the normal episode format. Enjoy your weekend, thank you for listening, and I'll see you next week. Peace. I got a talking about the don't don't, but some didn't happen after