Tonight on GeekNights, we consider the science and the art of Sports Commentating. In the news, legendary sports commentator has died, The New York Times is buying The Athletic, a sports commentator made a terrible mistake that is somehow distantly related to this ridiculous nonsense, and United States President Joe Biden calls out the fascist coup attempt by Donald Trump and the American Republican Party directly.
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It was years after hearing the famous “oh the humanity” lines before I came to understand that it was recorded for later playing on the radio, not for live broadcast, and was never intended to be synchronized with film footage of the event. Of course I’d never heard the commentary without also seeing the footage!
I was under the impression that the audio was broadcast live on the radio. But you are correct that it was not intended for the newsreels, but only pasted together later.
I have not verified this, but supposedly the commentators for sporting events are often isolated on the center audio channel. So if you have a surround sound setup, you can turn off that speaker and just get court/field noises.
I remember watching a march madness game probably 12+ years ago, and with a few minutes to go, the announcers said, “we’re signing off, enjoy the sounds of the game.” And from there out it was just crowd and sneakers and whistles and buzzers. It was awesome.