Virtual fans will be used to fill empty stadiums and arenas

guest · Jul 24, 2020

Fox Will Fill Empty Baseball Stadiums With Virtual Fans
July 23, 2020
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/fox-sports-baseball-virtual-fans-1234714159/

When Major League Baseball kicks off its 2020 season, fans won’t be allowed to sit in many of the ballparks. Viewers who watch any of four games broadcast over Fox or Fox Sports 1 this Saturday may not notice.

The Fox Corporation-owned outlet intends to fill the seats of Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Nationals Park and Petco Park with hundreds of virtual attendees, and will do the same at all the ballparks from which it broadcasts games over the next several weeks.
It’s part of the company’s effort to bring fans of the national pastime a game that looks and sounds like a traditional event, not one played in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic.

“We had a vision for making our Major League Baseball broadcasts look as natural as they were before COVID,” says Brad Zager, executive producer and executive vice president and head of production and operations for Fox Sports, in an interview. “A lot of that is having a crowd in the stadium.”
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Fox wants to make fans feel like they are watching the action they have come to expect, says Zager, not disrupt an already strange situation even further. “Our goal is to make sure that the view looks normal.”
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No fans? Not on FOX Sports .
Thousands of virtual fans will attend FOX’s MLB games this Saturday. pic.twitter.com/z9oQU0rYuC
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) July 23, 2020
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guest · Jul 24, 2020

Microsoft, NBA team up to put virtual fans in basketball arenas
July 24, 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rtual-fans-in-basketball-arenas-idUSKCN24P2CI

When the National Basketball Association restarts its coronavirus-interrupted season on July 30 in its “bubble” in Orlando, Florida, the stands could have more than 300 fans - none of whom will actually be in the arena.
Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and the NBA said on Friday they have joined forces to put “virtual” fans in the stands of each game using Microsoft’s Teams app and giant screens.

The two will equip each game court with 17-foot-tall (5.2 m) LED screens that wrap three sides of the arena. The virtual stands will be filled with fans who use the Teams app to log in and sit alongside each other using a new feature of the app called “Together mode” meant to simulate a group of people sitting in a room.
NBA officials also said on Friday they were revamping their approach to televising the games, with cameras positioned closer to the players to emulate the vantage point of fans sitting in seats near the court.

NBA officials said audio from the virtual fans will be played in the arena and televised. Virtual seats will be limited to 320 fans, a number based on the size of the venue and screens.
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guest · Jul 27, 2020

Fox Sports' virtual baseball fans are just plain weird
They were a little too much
July 27, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/fox-sports-virtual-181529869.html

The computer-generated crowd uses a combination of AR technology, camera-tracking and real-time graphics built in Epic’s Unreal Engine. Fox also hired Silver Spoon, an animation and virtual production studio, to scan in every single Major League ballpark so that the fans could be properly rendered into live camera feeds.

No fans? Not on FOX Sports.
Here's a first look at our latest broadcasting innovation: virtual fans. pic.twitter.com/vri4BO6vzb
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) July 25, 2020
The shot was far enough away that the “fans” blurred together, and if you squinted, you could almost be fooled into believing they were real.
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Unfortunately, that moment didn’t last very long. For one thing, the appearance of the virtual crowd wasn’t consistent. Sometimes they’d be there, sometimes they wouldn’t.
This on-again off-again transition was jarring to say the least, and was one of the most complained about aspects of the game on Twitter.

Andrew Marchand, a New York Post reporter, tweeted that one of the reasons for the sporadic appearance of the virtual crowds was that the network was “being cautious” in how it rolled it out. Be that as it may, it was still not a good look for the technology.
The NBA, however, is taking a slightly different approach. It’s equipping arenas with 17-foot tall LED screens that will display real-life people watching the game via Microsoft Teams.
As goofy as they might seem, cardboard cut-outs could potentially be preferable than Fox Sports’ idea of “virtual fans.”
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In the end, even Fox Sports acknowledges that it’s not fooling anyone with its virtual fans.
As broadcaster Adam Amin said in the Brewers vs Cubs broadcast, “It’s not gonna look or sound like what you’re used to. We’re not fooling you. It’s just making it a little normal once in a while.”
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guest · Sep 10, 2020

Microsoft will power virtual fan experience at NFL games with Teams, following NBA deal
September 10, 2020
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/micro...xperience-nfl-games-teams-following-nba-deal/

Microsoft is becoming the de-facto virtual fan enabler for sports leagues.

The tech giant revealed today that it is working with the NFL to host a virtual fan experience for games during the 2020-21 season, which kicks off tonight.
It’s similar to the company’s partnership with the NBA as leagues look to fill gaps with most fans banned from stadiums and arenas due to COVID-19.

For each NFL game, the home team will invite fans to the virtual experience. [...] The collage — you can see it above — will be streamed on LED screens in stadiums and on the TV broadcast.
Fans will be able to interact with each other as they watch the game via Teams and hear augmented crowd noise customized for each stadium.
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