A group of Indiana Fever faithful are taking action against a shared annoyance.
Fever fan Josh McNattin started a petition asking the team to address a “distinct and persistent voice” that bleeds into television broadcasts of the team’s home games. “During every Fever home game, a distinct and persistent voice, believed to be from a fan seated close to the scorer’s table, can be heard loudly and frequently throughout the entire game,” McNattin writes on the petition’s webpage. “While we celebrate the passion of all fans, this particular sound consistently overpowers other audio elements, including the commentary and ambient crowd noise. As a result, it can detract from the viewing experience for many fans watching from home or streaming online.”
At the time of writing, over 200 fans have signed the petition. According to a report by Dana Hunsinger Benbow in the Indianapolis Star, Pacers Sports & Entertainment, the Fever’s owner, did not respond to a request for comment about the matter.
Overeager fans making their way onto live sports broadcasts are nothing new, but considering the Fever’s popularity it seems like something the team, or league, should address. 41 of 44 Fever games this season will be nationally broadcast thanks to the team’s ascendance under Caitlin Clark. If viewers continue to tune in and hear this “distinct and persistent voice” during every broadcast, it could lead to certain fans tuning out.
A solution should be rather simple. Either move some microphones away from the fan in question, or tell him/her to stop.
McNattin hopes the solution comes from a rejiggering of the audio equipment. He lists several potential remedies in his petition including “adjusting microphone placement or polar patterns near the scorer’s table to limit crowd bleed, using directional mics or acoustic baffles to reduce unwanted vocal pickup, employing EQ filters or ducking algorithms during broadcasts to minimize overpowering frequencies, [and/or] adding more balanced ambient crowd mics from multiple zones of the arena.”
Hopefully, for the sake of Fever fans everywhere, something is done to address this matter.