Why Australian Open live streams look like Wii tennis — and what it means for sports

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. 26 — sold its broadcast rights to media companies around the world, limiting its live coverage capabilities. 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.

"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," Tennis Australia Chief Content Officer Darren Pearce said in a statement.

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? Fingers. 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 950,000 views, compared to roughly 140,000 in the same window last year, the AP reports. NPR has reached out to Tennis Australia for more information.

On social media, tweets and TikToks of the cartoon-like players and standout moments — including Russia's Daniil Medvedev smashing a net camera with his racquet — have garnered tens of thousands of likes.

The real-life players have also signaled their approval.

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz, a four-time Grand Slam winner, called it "amusing" and "a good option for people who want to watch tennis and can't." Canada's Leylah Fernandez, who said she stumbled upon the animation by accident, called it "hilarious."

McCann, the law professor, says it remains to be seen whether animation will play a bigger role in sports streaming going forward.

"It's obviously really different from watching a tennis match with humans," he said, pointing to the lack of facial expressions and other human qualities. "It seems like it sparks curiosity, but is this sustainable?"

The Australian Open isn't the only — or first — sports entity trying to figure that out.

Looney Tunes on ice, the Simpsons take the field  

American organizations, including the National Hockey League and National Football League have been experimenting with animated broadcasts for years, albeit in a slightly different format.

The leagues have partnered with rights holders to incorporate characters, settings and animation styles from popular cartoon franchises into specially themed games since 2023.

"The usual use of this practice is not to get around a broadcasting restriction, but instead to import intellectual property into a broadcast and hope to attract a broader base of viewers," McCann explained.

"It's a way of making a product that might be more geared towards young adults and up to younger folks and also parents, parents that might not watch an NHL game but will with their children if there are characters on it that the children are interested in."

The NFL, CBS Sports and Nickelodeon teamed up to bring SpongeBob and plenty of slime to a "kids-centric" telecast of the 2024 Super Bowl, for example. ESPN and Disney presented a "Funday Football" Toy Story animated game in 2023, and another with The Simpsons in December, featuring the canonical yellow characters on the field and sidelines, pre-recorded segments and the show's theme song and jingles.

The NHL has done several such projects dating back to February 2023, when it collaborated with ESPN and Disney for the NHL Big City Greens Classic — a live, animated telecast of a Washington Capitals-New York Rangers faceoff, with players modeled after characters from the animated comedy adventure series, which it reprised the following year.

It also presented the MultiVersus NHL Face-Off, a partnership with TNT Sports and Warner Bros. Games that brought beloved characters from the MultiVersus video game — including Bugs Bunny, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Steven Universe — to an animated matchup between the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights, officiated by the Tasmanian Devil.

"The whole premise for what we did the first two seasons was to create an experience that reached beyond the avid, if not even sort of semi-avid, NHL fan base to try to pull in a younger, more family-oriented audience," said David Lehanski, the NHL's executive vice president of business development and innovation.

And, he says, it worked.

Lehanski told NPR in an interview that while average broadcasts typically draw an audience that's about 60% male and 40% female, the animated broadcasts "basically flipped that." He said they also "lowered the average by like 25 years," with a much smaller than typical percentage of viewers above the age of 35. Lehanski said it didn't take traffic away from the regular live broadcast, either.

"What we've seen is that side-by-side viewing was occurring," he said. "And that's what happened in my house. We had the traditional live game on ESPN, and on an iPad we were watching the animated version. And part of the allure of the experience is actually seeing the two side-by-side — holy cow, it's like, this is a real hockey game."

Are animated sports the future?

/ Australian Open TV/Screenshot by NPR

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Australian Open TV/Screenshot by NPR

 Animation could become a more regular feature in certain sporting events, depending on audience interest, technological capability and licensing availability.

Lehanski says the NHL has gotten "overwhelmingly positive" audience feedback and is currently in the process of testing in the hopes of offering animated broadcasts on a more regular basis.

"We're scratching the surface with this," he said. "I mean, there's so much more that's going to come."

That could include animated versions of highlight reels for social media and condensed games to air on weekend mornings, he says, "sort of the new version of Saturday morning cartoons for kids." The technology could be used to turn players into avatars of themselves or entirely different animated characters, insert "crazy landscapes" behind them or "make the hockey puck look like a cookie."

"Even longer term, I think what you're going to get is some ability for fans to create their own experience," Lehanski added. "But until then, we're going to rely on world-class producers to create experiences that are customized for audiences."

He says the technology involved in the animation — which includes light emitters inside the puck and the back of players' jerseys — has improved since the NHL started using it, rendering players' movements and strides even more accurately.

It's those technological developments that open up even more possibilities — like maybe, one day, giving tennis avatars fingers with which to hold their racquets, as Reid hinted.

Reid told the AP he doesn't think animation will become the primary way to watch sports, at least not in his lifetime.

"But who knows?" he said. "The world of sport and entertainment is moving so, so quickly."

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