Bayern Munich is playing Borussia Dortmund right now on Fox Sports 1. Big game in the German Bundesliga.

Fox decided to go ahead and use artificial crowd noise, which is not coming from the stadium, but instead given as an option to broadcasters, who then decide if they’d like to go with it or just use natural sound instead. The players are in an empty arena without fans and nothing coming through the speakers, but if you’re watching at home you hear the fake noise through your TV set.

It sounds decent when the camera shots are tight and you can only see the players, like this:

No problem with fan noise there, because you can’t see the stands anyway.

But when the camera pulls out or pans, you see the empty seats and hear the noise at the same time, which feels very odd:

Seems like a lot of people are enjoying the crowd noise, so to each their own.

I’d just prefer to hear the natural and organic sounds coming from the field. I want to hear the communication and contact with the ball. I’d enjoy hearing a linebacker tackle a running back, or a QB audible from pass to run. That feels more intriguing to me personally than the comfort of familiarity, which might improve the atmosphere but ultimately is totally artificial.