The YouTube channel of the Australian Open Tennis Championships broadcasts matches where digital avatars compete instead of real athletes, TechSpot reports.
Strangely enough, the Australian Open tennis tournament does not have full broadcasting rights, which is a fairly common practice. Therefore, in order for fans to follow the tournament online, real players are replaced by digital avatars that reproduce their movements using tracking technology.
The Australian Open don’t own all of their broadcasting rights (fairly common), so they’re live-streaming a Wii Tennis-like version of the matches on YouTube - love this 😂
— Bastien Fachan (@BastienFachan) January 13, 2025
This is Carlos Alcaraz’ match point: pic.twitter.com/HvxhYneWGH
This makes it possible not to show the athletes themselves and allows you to stream matches on YouTube for free.
Unfortunately, such broadcasts have some bugs: rackets often hang in the air without interaction with the player's hands, the ball sometimes disappears, and the sound sometimes does not match the video.These disadvantages can be understood if we consider the effectiveness of the method, which allows anyone with access to YouTube to watch matches, regardless of who owns the broadcast rights.
This is not the first time that modern technologies have been used during a sporting event to reproduce the game in a digital format. The NFL, in partnership with Disney Plus, broadcast a football game, replacing players with Simpsons characters.