Miami owns home court advantage with taped live crowd

Fans are sort of back with Miami's taped fan videos
Jul 23, 2020

WHO said that the NBA restart has to be silent?

Miami sure brought a sense of normalcy in its first scrimmage game in Orlando.

Facing the Sacramento Kings, the Heat owned up to their privilege as the designated home team as it showed taped video of the AmericanAirlines Arena crowd moments during the game.

It was a valiant attempt to replicate the home crowd setting.

And somehow, home court advantage worked as Miami got the better of Sacramento, 104-98, on Wednesday (Thursday, Manila time) with Duncan Robinson leading the way with 18 points built on five triples.

It's a savvy use of the LED boards placed around the court, one which NBA teams might explore moving forward.

The other three scrimmages only blasted logos and names of the designated home teams in the screens, with the only "crowd" noise coming from the players' chatter on the court.

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Leagues around the globe have tried their best to cope with the lack of fan interaction inside the arenas as they resumed operations.

The Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) has placed a giant LED board where fans can be seen watching the games online, while packing the rafters with jerseys and stuffed animals when it returned to action last June.

South Korea's KBO league also filled its stadium with fake cutouts to replicate a live crowd, while in Taiwan, the Chinese Professional Baseball League worked with robot drummers and mannequins when it made its comeback.

European football leagues have explored options in making the games livelier, with Spain's La Liga and the English Premier League even tapping game developer EA to provide virtual noise.

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