chess makes a key point about bad audio sounds like bad audio. In this case (subdued crowd noise), I'm not sure you should have ANY expectations. That noise is there as something of a necessary evil. The announcers need to be heard and that automatically is going to force the network to throw some kind of audio blanket over the crowd. Additionally, I'm guessing there are not 200 sound engineers with sensitive instruments optimizing the placement of multiple microphones all over the stadium to produce 7.1 channel sound for the TV broadcast.
Think about the crowd noise in a live concert CD. You hear the audio optimized for the band (baseball announcers?) not the concert audience (baseball crowd?).
Here's a pertinent question - How do your Axioms sound for music and movies?
