# Sports Without Fans: Would You Prefer Canned Crowd Noise, Or Organic Silence?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-without-fans-would-you-prefer-canned-crowd-noise-or-organic-silence/853658>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [May 12, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-without-fans-would-you-prefer-canned-crowd-noise-or-organic-silence/853658 "2020-05-12T18:17:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-without-fans-would-you-prefer-canned-crowd-noise-or-organic-silence/853658/1 "2020-05-12T18:17:33Z")

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Let’s say it’s Week 1 of the NFL season, and the game you’re watching is being played at an empty stadium because social distancing.

As a TV viewer at home, would you prefer that the network use “canned” crowd noise, or would it be distracting and you would prefer the organic silence?

Poll to follow.

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**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-without-fans-would-you-prefer-canned-crowd-noise-or-organic-silence/853658/2 "2020-05-12T18:34:19Z")

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I want silence. Since the noise is canned, I would know it is fake, so it would just be weird.

It’s like how I would prefer that an audience’s laugh be genuine, rather than a piped laugh track.

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**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-without-fans-would-you-prefer-canned-crowd-noise-or-organic-silence/853658/3 "2020-05-12T18:40:36Z")

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Noise, but it could go NBA style and play exciting music all the time. Silence would be terrible.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-without-fans-would-you-prefer-canned-crowd-noise-or-organic-silence/853658/4 "2020-05-12T21:46:44Z")

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A music soundtrack could work, but canned crowd is just as bad as canned laughter, which is pretty bad.