In many countries, Covid-19 pandemic has also affected the professional sports world. Currently, the competitions held in the stadiums are mostly played behind closed doors. In this context, the famous Japanese firm Yamaha is currently testing a device allowing supporters to encourage their favorite teams from home. It’s about generating noises from your smartphone that will be broadcast in the stadium.
Support from home
In Japan, as in many countries, football matches are played behind closed doors. In other words, no supporter can take place in the stands. While this is a necessary health measure in this period of crisis, for some, the absence of the public can have an influence on the results of the teams. In a press release published on May 25, 2020, there was an application called Remote Cheere. The latter is the result of the collaboration between two Japanese companies, namely Yamaha and SoundUD.
The objective? Allow fans to support their team in the stadium while staying at home. They just have to use their smartphone, more precisely by pressing keys corresponding to different sounds (encouragement, whistles, chants, applause, etc.). This is a kind of “soundboard”, already used for some series where TV shows.
Reproduce the real atmosphere of a match
The project leaders are currently testing the Remote Cheere device in the Ecopa Stadium in Shizuoka, located in Fukuroi (Shizuoka prefecture). This 50,000-seat enclosure houses two Japanese first division teams: Júbilo Iwata and Shimizu S-Pulse. And for these football teams, this is a very interesting initiative.
“At one point during the test, I closed my eyes and felt like the cheering fans were there, in the stadium, with me. It was then that I knew this system had the potential to encourage players, even in a stadium of this size, “said Keisuke Matsubayashi, one of the stadium employees.
Based on a technology dubbed SoundUD, the application relies on speakers deployed throughout the stadium. This allows users to generate noise in a specific part of the enclosure. In short, if enough supporters lend themselves to the game, it would be quite possible to recreate fairly the real atmosphere of a match.