FOR some odd reason, this column has long served as a sports fan complaint department. The most common, time-tested gripe is about loud and incessant canned noise at ballparks and arenas, and how it makes it difficult to have a conversation with the guy next to you, let alone concentrate on the game.
We’ve reached the point where the words of radio and TV broadcasters are nearly drowned out by pre-fabricated background noise that pervades the foreground.
To purchase a ticket now implies that in addition to the game you’re equally interested in any combination of rock, heavy metal and hip hop music, in addition to the sounds of just-plain pounding, those deep, vibrating sounds designed to create artificial enthusiasm.
Lost to this desensitizing noise are the natural and wonderful sounds of the games, the bouncing of a ball against hardwood, the slicing of skates sharply turning on freshly Zambonied ice, the simultaneous slapping of 11 pair of hands as the huddle breaks.
Wednesday afternoon, during MSG’s Indians-Yankees telecast, Jim Kaat lamented the loss of the sounds of baseball, which, he noted, sound especially sweet during day games. Yankee Stadium, said Kaat, has hopped on board the noise train.
And by no means is the noise for noise’s sake limited to the big leagues. The minor league Brooklyn Cyclones have debuted to an in-house marketing plan that would have fans come for the baseball but stay for the racket.
Stan Fischler, proud son of Brooklyn, threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Cyclones game this past Tuesday night.
“Truly a terrific experience in every way, except one,” said Fischler. “Every pitch, every play – foul ball, a ground ball out – brought an attack of noise from the p.a. system or the scoreboard. It was like a clap of thunder, every few seconds. It was deafening, startling. And it intruded on the appreciation of the game.
“You can sit close to the field at these games, yet the noise actually distanced you from the game. And the noise was apropos of nothing. It was inane.”
Baseball is another sport that can no longer stand alone; it has to be sold as something else, in addition, generally something that’s supposed to please younger, more fidgety audiences. And that means loud, fidgety, meaningless noise. And that’s a pity.
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For the last few years, ESPN’s live NFL draft coverage has been tough to endure because yahoos, many of them drunk and/or whatever, are invited to add flavor by comprising a live, on-site audience. Naturally, these fans demonstrate for the microphones and cameras in the most rowdy, often profane manner that they can muster.
But the NFL and ESPN, which have long portrayed face-painted, bare-chested, beer-muscled creeps as its most attention-worthy and cherished fans, gets what it deserves.
ESPN’s “College GameDay” football show, its mobile studio erected just outside the stadium where big college football games are about to be played, frequently finds fans forming a background of ugly sights and sounds.
Often, obscenities are chanted at ESPN’s panelists. Other times debris, including beer cans and bottles, are thrown at the set. Viewers at home, ostensibly the audience ESPN most wants to attract and hold, find themselves distracted by the background shenanigans and unable to concentrate on what the distracted panelists, who are forced to shout above the din, have to say.
But ESPN gets what it deserves.
To these ends, you’d think that the NBA and cable partner, TNT, would’ve learned a hard lesson the easy way and not worked off a copy of the afore noted plans. Fat chance.
Wednesday night’s NBA draft on TNT was replete with vandals performing from The Theater at Madison Square Garden, doing their best to do their worst. At one point, NBA deputy commissioner Russ Granik, the target of a loud, gratuitous and vulgar chant, was moved, from the podium and on the air, to scold the naughty boyz in the audience.
But the NBA and TNT, having ignored lessons about fan-interactive, reality television, deserved what it got.
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Post reader Chris Corey, recently moved from Astoria to Kansas, has a six-year-old son, Shane, who loves to watch Droopy Dog on the Cartoon Network. So, with Shane on his lap, Corey found a Droopy Dog game on the Cartoon Network’s website.
But when he clicked on the game, Dad’s mouth hit his knees. He had entered “Droopy Dog’s Casino Corral,” where Droopy’s mission was to teach kids how to play blackjack, then have them try to beat Montana Wolf out of his stash.
“Now we’ve got Droopy Dog teaching little kids how to play blackjack in Droopy’s Casino,” said Corey. “It never stops.”
But who knows? If little Shane plays often enough, maybe someday, in addition to being plied senseless with Droopy’s free casino booze, he’ll get comped at Droopy’s Casino Buffet.