Jonno is a writer for Esports Insider and has been part of the team since 2019. Over the past ten years, he's written for several outlets including Gfinity, GGRecon, and Radio Times. As an avid sim racer, he aims to provide insight on one of the fastest growing sectors in esports.
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Image Credit: Valve Integrity in esports remains a hot topic of conversation among fans and industry stakeholders looking to ensure the world’s biggest events are contested on a level playing field. The world’s best teams frequently compete on stages surrounded by supporters cheering on their favorite players.
Despite the use of noise-canceling headsets and in-ear monitors to prevent players from hearing crowd noise, there have been several instances of fans alerting them to specific in-game actions that often determine the outcome of a round.
The solution? The return of the soundproof booths.
Image Credit: Call of Duty League The topic of the crowd giving away specific plays during high-stakes matches reared its head at the 2026 Call of Duty League (CDL) Championship, where cheers alerted OpTic Texas to a potential FaZe Vegas bomb defuse in the Grand Final.
In a bid to emerge victorious, Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro said “the crowd will let us know” when the opposition was making a play.
Comms from the Winning Moment of #CDL2026 Champs 🏆 pic.twitter.com/8MC71b3CNC
Reliance on the OpTic-favoring crowd backfired, as Jordan “Abuzah” François used the crowd to his advantage, resulting in FaZe Vegas winning its first Champs trophy in five years.
With both teams using the crowd to varying degrees of success, audience behavior has prompted calls for the return of soundproof booths . Throughout the 2014 and 2015 Call of Duty esports seasons, player booths were a mainstay at high-profile tournaments and had the desired effect of preventing outside interference from affecting gameplay.
It’s not just Call of Duty that has to deal with the crowd potentially ruining moments of matches that can swing in favor of one team or the other. For several years, Counter-Strike has tried to deal with fan actions, such as giving away opponents obscured by a smoke grenade or players hoping to use an off-angle to gain the upper hand.
2025’s FISSURE Playground 2 clash between FURIA and Team Falcons demonstrated the power of the crowd when rifler Damjan “kyxsan” Stoilkovski found himself blocked off by a smoke. Thanks to Counter-Strike 2’s X-ray spectator feature, the crowd cheered when his crosshair moved over the position of an opponent. Even when the tournament organizer switched X-ray off, Kyxsan’s mouse movement still triggered a reaction to confirm the location of the incoming attackers.
Tournament organizers spend large sums to ensure that all tournament PCs are identical, the infrastructure is stable, and the rulebook is meticulously followed. Despite this, they do very little to control the behavior of 15,000 fans who are emotionally invested in the players competing on stage.
Crowd behavior of this nature has no place in esports. Even when features designed to enhance the viewing…