When i do watch an MLS game at silly o'clock in the morning on channel 5 here in the UK. Is it me or are the commentators are turned all the way up and the crowd volume is turned all the way down. Every match i've seen so far, has obsolutely no atmosphere at all. Ok, i am used to watching the football over here and the crowd volume turned a couple of decibels below the commentators. I'm sure the fans are more animated than they sound, unless someone else knows otherwise. Do you think that by turning the volume of the crowd up a bit more that it would make viewing a bit more exciting.
I think the TV people need to turn up the volume, one game I was watching on saturday showed some fans beating drums and so on, and it was still pretty quiet.
Part of the issue is how the crowd is miked, but a bigger problem is that, sadly, MLS games are a bit short on Enlgish style atmosphere. They have the typical atmosphere of American sporting events (which isn't all bad, IMHO). Fans cheer when something good happens, react when something horrible happens, etc, but they don't sing and chant the entire game.
I think a problem is stadium size. The noise that is generated in some of the larger stadia, Giants Stadium in NJ, Arrowhead in KC, Gillette in NE just is not contained. RFK in DC is the exception to the large stadium to noise ratio. But the other cities have smaller 20k stadia, and at times can get a good atmosphere going.
I'm sure that there are good atmosphere in the game, so wouldn't it be better to turn up the volume of the fans and turn the play by play sound down to just above the noise of the crowd.
Crowds here do not approach English crowds for producing game atmosphere. It's just the way crowds are here, they are more reactive than proactive. That said, the TV crews could certainly do a better job of miking the crowds that are at the matches. FSW is particularly bad when it comes to this. Sometimes it sounds as if the crowd is under water, the sound is so muffled.