Phillies eyed mid-August to invite fans back before city ban

Challenges with pumping in crowd noise

In Tuesday evening’s intrasquad game, the Phillies’ first of summer camp that was streamed to fans across its social media platforms, the team explored pumping in crowd noise at Citizens Bank Park.

After, manager Joe Girardi said he liked what he heard, but that maybe the noise could be mixed up  a little. Buck said the decision was easy to start pumping in noise, however, then it came down to deciding what noise to use and where do you get it.

The Phillies have already have an answer for the latter; they will get their audio tracks through Sony PlayStation’s popular MLB The Show video game franchise. The Phanavision team will be responsible for managing the noise during the games.

“They have crowd noise in all of their games and it’s pretty realistic,” Buck said.

Now, Buck said the Phillies have to determine just what decibel level is appropriate, how and when to pump in noise, as well as how to make it seem real as much as possible.

Even then, more challenges present itself before things are squared away for the home opener on July 24.

“The folks at NBC Sports Philly, they have crowd noise ready to go to pump in the broadcast. But, they’re not sure if our crowd for in the stadium will be enough to pick up on TV,” Buck said.

“No one ‘s done [this] before. … You can’t have a Phillies single and have the place go nuts; and then, the Marlins double and you pump in boos,” Buck continued. “We will get feedback. I’m sure the players will get feedback and I mean that in a positive way. We’ll go from there.”

“You have to figure out the right way to do it, make it fair, make it seem legit, and try to make it a little bit normal.”