so that it echoes through the place, almost like if real people were there. To me, it's no more offensive than a laugh track on an old 1960's sitcom I'd watch on some re-run TV channel.

One thing that audience-less baseball does is make it easier for players to refuse to play a game based on something their fans are not responsible for.

Oh yeah, the echoes. That probably sounds more realistic, although I don't know what the tapes sound like. For that matter, I don't know if they're even using tapes. They probably have a lot of sound clips that a computer splices together in real time to create an effect with slider parameters for intensity, volume, etc.

I don't think it's offensive either. It's better than silence would be, and in what I've seen they do a really good job of making it real.

I don't mind the cardboard cutouts either. In fact, some of them are kind of fun, and they're better than looking at empty seats. The Dodgers are doing something cool: you can buy a "seat"--they put a life size cutout of you in a seat, for a charge. If a game ball hits your cutout, you get the ball.

I think the NBA and then the NFL are more likely than baseball to deal with protest, etc. Baseball seems to have more Curt Schillings.

the cardboard cutouts looked a bit creepy, sort of like that Burger King mascot that never changes expression. But, I've gotten used to them to the point where I'm cracking jokes with friends about them:

"Wow, did you see how badly the Mets were getting beaten the other night? Some of the cutouts were heading for the parking lot during the seventh inning stretch."

Frankly, one of the reasons I stopped watching either Fallon or Colbert was the lack of an audience response. A comedian doesn't play an instrument, they play an audience. Imagine Yo-Yo Ma pantomiming playing a cello, it wouldn't be that entertaining. A laugh track is an imitation of an audience, which is better than nothing.

When I listen to games on MLB.com audio, it sounds just like the good old days.

I never see the late night comics anymore (getting old). If I'm up that late, I'm doing something more interesting than watching TV. But I'm surprised they don't have some networked thing like zoom to have some audience feedback. The Dem convention did it for quite a few people for something (don't remember what) for a one-time event. Surely they could do it for a regularly repeating thing. I would think that interviewees and interviewers would have a keen interest in audience feedback as well as comics.