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The Australian Open is showing (almost) live coverage of its tournament on its YouTube channel but with a twist: everything onscreen is an animated rendering of the actual matches.
Why It Hits: The Australian Open can’t stream its matches live because of its exclusive broadcast deals, but simulcasting an animated rendition is a clever hack that can grow the tournament’s viewership and maybe convince broadcasters to pay for rights to it as well, eventually.
Between the Serves: Welcome to AO Animated… or, as we call it, Sims: Tennis.
- AO Animated computer generates the players, ball, and court for the YouTube stream by employing 12 cameras to capture the action.
- It’s then rendered into animation with a two-minute delay to the live broadcast.
- The audio of the arena and commentary are given the same delay, so everything matches up.
- There’s also a real-time comment stream to help build a digital community around the tournament.
Final Score: The Australian Open actually rolled out this tech last year, where it peaked at almost 800,000 views during the men’s final. This year’s tournament, which began on January 5th, has already attracted 4x as many viewers. Coupled with the popularity of CBS’ Nickelodeon-fied broadcasts of football games and Prime Video’s alternative commentary broadcasts of Thursday Night Football, creating niche ways to watch sports may take over the game.
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