ACC football teams can pump in artificial crowd noise this season

Mack Brown dropped some big news during a conference call on Monday that ACC football teams can pump in fake crowd noise in light of limited or zero fans at games this season.

The ACC football season kicks off in a little over a week from now. While every program in the conference will participate, their environments will be entirely different due to the coronavirus pandemic. While Notre Dame and Miami will have a limited capacity of fans allowed in stadiums, programs like the North Carolina Tar Heels won’t have any through the month of September. But, those teams will be allowed to compensate for the lack of fans.

During a conference call on Monday, Tar Heels head coach Mack Brown announced that the ACC will allow teams to pump in artificial crowd noise to fill the void left by no fans. Brown himself said that they’re “going to have to bring our own energy.”

Tar Heels will try to get fans in the stadium by October

This past Friday, North Carolina announced that no fans will be allowed inside Kenan Memorial Stadium through the month of September. University chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said that the decision was a “necessary step” to keep everyone on campus and in the community safe. North Carolina will reconvene later in the month to see if there can be a limited amount of fans in the stadium in October. Plus, fans and students are prohibited from tailgating on campus.

North Carolina’s first two games of the season are scheduled to take place at home against the Syracuse Orange and Charlotte 49ers, respectively. Brown, himself, said that all individuals will be required to wear helmets or masks while standing on the sidelines.

The ACC teams that won’t have fans in attendance at least through the month of September include North Carolina, Syracuse, Duke and Boston College. As of this writing, all other programs in the conference have either committed to limited in-stadium capacity or are still undecided.

Given the uncertainty with the spread of COVID-19, programs like North Carolina are playing it safe. Again, it all depends on if they receive approval from public health officials and from their local government. Until then, you’ll hear plenty of crowd noise, just like you hear when watching MLB games this year.

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