Ever wished that tennis looked more like the Rugrats? Haven’t we all. After a sneaky, limited testing of the waters last year, the 2025 Australian Open has gone all-in on a mixed-reality livestream of its matches on YouTube, and the internet is loving it.
It’s like a Nintendo Wii Sports video game with much more grunting. On paper, it sounds like a half-assed idea. But in execution? It’s actually quite entertaining. It can’t replace or entirely replicate the action of watching real players on the screen, but as entertainment, it’ll have you saying Wiiiiii all the way through the match point.
the right(S) stuff
It isn’t just a vain grab at eyeballs among social media. The Australian Open, having sold broadcast rights to a variety of television networks around the world, can’t simply hop onto its own YouTube channel and broadcast the same thing. It’d royally piss off those who bought the rights.
Merging the actual movements of the players and the ball on the court with animated characters is a workaround for the Australian Open to bring the action to its YouTube channel live without infringing on its broadcast deals.
“By integrating skeletal tracking data with animated characters, this mixed-reality experience is designed to captivate a new generation of tennis fans, making the sport more accessible and engaging, particularly for kids and families,” said the Australian Open’s representative in a statement.
Ultra-realistic audio—because, duh, it is real—combined with the cartoonish effect of a Barbie-handed cartoon person dribbling a tennis ball is surreal. Having trouble picturing it? Watch it for yourself.
Rebroadcasting rights differ from live broadcasting rights, so highlight reels and replays of old matches are shown with the humans back in their boring real bodies. After the skepticism and novelty of watching the Wii-headed characters play a match wore off, I felt quite let down by seeing the real players again.
Since the Australian Open is the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, it’ll be interesting to see if the technology’s wider incorporation and outsized positive fan reaction on social media bring it to any other Grand Slams in 2025. Now, a live-streamed Formula 1 race that looks like Mario Kart, I would be so down for. Wouldn’t you?
Enjoy these bloopers of when the tech glitched out in the meantime. Because watching Jack Draper fall through the floor, with only his hands sticking out above him like a kind of interdimensional hot tub partier is damn fine TV.
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