I've never been in a bar where the TVs had their audio on. The sports games are on screens but muted, and some have closed-captioning turned on.
Wouldn't that defeat this?
Slightly off-topic but I feel like relating it:
When I was a kid, we'd watch baseball games on TV, but muted. Then we'd turn on the radio and tune in whatever station was simulcasting the game. Because the radio announcers assume you can't see the action, they narrate a lot more of what's going on, so we could follow the gameplay without having to be glued to the screen every instant.
We also didn't have air conditioning, so baseball season was windows-open season, and more than once a pedestrian would pause to listen, sometimes holler "HEY WHAT'S THE SCORE?" into the house, we'd holler back, they'd continue down the sidewalk. _Everyone_ watched the Tigers in the 80s, and it was said that when a game was on, you could walk clear from Trenton to Mt Clemens and never be out of the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice.
Sports in bars is a very different experience with sound on vs. off. Without sound, it's a background distraction that a few folks may be interested in. With sound on (even if the commentary is indecipherable), it's a collective experience that holds everyone's attention. Usually the bar will mute or put on music during commercial breaks.
I do wonder if alternative commentary would ever catch on. Imagine if instead of talking heads you had a music track that would mimic the tension of the game like a music score.
It used to be reasonably common to mute commercial TV and listen to the ABC (public radio)'s broadcast for commentary in AFL and cricket in Australia.
I don't hear about it much anymore which I would guess is due to the encoding delay of digital TV vs analogue radio broadcast and the general lack of AM/FM radios in the living area.
Foxtel (pay TV) also trialed an alternative commentary track with a more parochial commentator for Collingwood games.
Honestly the best way to watch baseball at least is to mute the TV and turn on the radio—vastly higher quality commentary, and you can look up in time to see the play you just heard. The ads also tend to be more local and less obnoxious.
Personally, I feel a slapstick comedy track would work best. /joke
What could work really well is some live radio, podcast, twitch of commentary to supplement the detectable pirated audio. The biggest issue would be syncing the video and audio.
So someone out there could make a killing by running their own stream that acts as alternate audio for the matches. Couple of super-fans in a booth with a video feed of the match, no audio passthrough, their own SFX person and statistician feeding them talking-points...
Charge bars a few dollars for the feed, and watch 'em rake it in.
Wouldn't that defeat this?
Slightly off-topic but I feel like relating it:
When I was a kid, we'd watch baseball games on TV, but muted. Then we'd turn on the radio and tune in whatever station was simulcasting the game. Because the radio announcers assume you can't see the action, they narrate a lot more of what's going on, so we could follow the gameplay without having to be glued to the screen every instant.
We also didn't have air conditioning, so baseball season was windows-open season, and more than once a pedestrian would pause to listen, sometimes holler "HEY WHAT'S THE SCORE?" into the house, we'd holler back, they'd continue down the sidewalk. _Everyone_ watched the Tigers in the 80s, and it was said that when a game was on, you could walk clear from Trenton to Mt Clemens and never be out of the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice.