Jan 17, 2025 12:00:00

The Australian Open tennis tournament is being officially broadcast with matches being animated in real time.

Every year in late January,

the Australian Open, one of the four major tennis tournaments, is held in Melbourne, Australia. The Australian Open is usually broadcast live exclusively through licensing agreements with broadcasters and distribution services, so even the channel that owns the event cannot broadcast it. At the 2025 Australian Open, which will be held from January 6 to 26, 2025, the matches filmed by 12 cameras will be converted into animations in real time and broadcast live on YouTube to avoid license conflicts.

LIVE | Aryna Sabalenka v Clara Tauson | AO Animated | Australian Open 2025 - YouTube


The Australian Open's animated livestreams make players look like Wii Sports characters - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24344285/australian-open-livestreaming-wii-sports-style-tennis-matches

The attempt to convert the Australian Open into an animated version in real time and broadcast it was first introduced in the 2024 tournament. The viewership peaked during the men's final, and the live archive was viewed about 800,000 times on YouTube. The viewership will further increase in the 2025 tournament, with about four times as many viewers watching the animated Australian Open compared to the same period in 2024.

'The technology is far from perfect but is developing rapidly,' said Machar Reid, director of innovation at Tennis Australia. 'The target market is communities interested in animation, virtual and gaming products. The real and virtual worlds will soon merge and we are instinctively positioned to be there.'

Below is a live broadcast of the match between Naomi Osaka and Carolyn Garcia in the first round of the Australian Open on January 13, 2025. Before the start of the match, the view from the court to the spectators is shown.

The scene where both players enter the ring is broadcast in live action.

Before a tennis match there are a few minutes of practice, which is also shot in live action.

The call of 'Ready' was made and Garcia began the serve.

Then the footage switched to animation and the match began. Footage of the match can only be distributed by licensed media, but by converting all footage during the match into animation, the Australian Open's YouTube channel, Australian Open TV , could also broadcast the match.

The animated matches also had some awkwardness and problems, such as the Osaka vs. Garcia match, where both players turned red after the first serve.

Also, immediately after the first ball, the game was still playing on the audio, but the video just showed the court and stopped moving. A message was also posted in the live chat by the operator saying, 'Sorry, the system has crashed.'

Additionally, there are some areas where the avatar generation is lacking, such as Osaka's uniform always appearing to have holes in it.

However, when you watch the video, you can clearly see the swing of the racket, the movement of the spinning ball, the power of the sharp serve, etc. In addition, the sounds of the balls hitting the court during the rally, the sounds of the stadium, and the players shouting 'Come on!' when they hit a service ace all sound exactly the same as the animation, so you can still enjoy the fun of the Australian Open and tennis even through the animation.

Similar projects have been implemented in other sports, such as NFL broadcasts and ice hockey in the United States. 'We're always trying to innovate the fan experience, whether it's at the venue or at home. In the broadcasting world, there are ways to personalize content in different ways and provide different services. Ultimately, we hope that broadcasters will adopt it in time,' Reid said of the future outlook.