Tennis fans worldwide can stream Australian Open matches online, with a catch: The players on screen aren't real human beings, but video game-like avatars on a computer-generated court.
The tournament — which runs through Jan. Instead, it is using animation to transmit the action live on its YouTube channel. Organizers hope the creative workaround will bring the first Grand Slam of the year even more viewers, and win over new fans. Michael McCann, the director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at the University of New Hampshire, told NPR that while animated characters could certainly help bring in younger fans, they are "at least in part a way of providing the coverage of the event in the absence of a broadcasting right.
The fact that rebroadcasting rights are separate would explain why concluded matches and highlight reels show the players in their human form, he added. During live gameplay, however, the players — and the general contours and colors of their outfits — are animated in a Nintendo Wii-esque style, as are the court, racquets, balls, umpires, ball people and spectators.
The sounds, commentary and action are real, just on a roughly two-minute delay. One thing the players don't have? Machar Reid, director of innovation at Tennis Australia, told The Guardian that the system — which involves 12 cameras and 29 tracking points in the skeleton — is "not as seamless as it could be … but in time you can begin to imagine a world where that comes.
The "animated feeds" quietly debuted during last year's Australian Open, according to the Associated Press. This year, it expanded to more matches — and seems to have made a much bigger impression. Tennis Australia says the streams during the first four days of the tournament got , views, compared to roughly , in the same window last year, the AP reports.
