This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

A couple of years ago, we presented a story produced by Peregrun Andrews about how certain sounds, like the sounds of skis on a cross-country track or hoofbeats on a horse racing track,

were faked on sports broadcasts.

It ended up being one of our most popular and provocative episodes ever, mainly because people were really

taken aback by the notion that any part of a sporting event might be faked.

That episode was just a small excerpt of a much longer documentary called The Sound of Sport.

And we got a number of requests from our audience over the years asking where they could hear

the entire piece.

And today, my friends, we are going to present it to you in its full glory.

This is a fascinating, exquisitely produced deep, deep dive into the sound design of sports

broadcasting, a subject that I'll bet most people have never even

considered before.

That's just one of the reasons why I love it.

Keep in mind, this was originally broadcast in 2011, so it's after the World Cup in South Africa and before the London Olympic Games in 2012

so just to place you in the proper sports history context.

This is the sound of sport produced by Paragrin Andrews for Falling Tree Productions and presented by Dennis Baxter. I like listening to sports. I can close my eyes I can hear every single one in my head. It's my belief that people have ingrained in them a memory of certain sounds and if that

sound is not fulfilled then the mind knows that there's something wrong.

There is an expectation of what football sounds like,

and it certainly wasn't.

Vuzealous, the plastic horns whose noise has been driving people mad.

Just that continuous hum, which actually ground out all of the meaningful noises.

Ah, the sound of the World Cup in South Africa and those damn vu-Zillas.

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