Tennis Australia Innovates With AO Animated Live Stream, Renews EMG/Gravity Media-Tech Deal The animation effort is part of a global trend toward reaching a younger audience By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director Friday, January 24, 2025 - 10:16 am
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The 2025 Australian Open (AO) comes to its conclusion this weekend, and, from a technology and innovation standpoint, it has delivered on two fronts. First, it is year one of a new five-year deal under which EMG/Gravity Media provides Tennis Australia technical facilities. Second, Tennis Australia got into the animated-live-event game with an effort called AO Animated.
AO Animated drew more than 950,000 viewers in the first four days of tournament. The figure for the same period in 2024 was about 140,000.
AO Animated is a YouTube live stream that takes player-tracking and ball-tracking data from 12 cameras (each capturing 29 points of the human skeleton at 50 fps) and pumps it through graphics-render engines to create a cartoon version of the players and the match.
Animated feeds were produced by a talented internal team of innovators using real-time player- and ball-tracking data and Unreal render engines, says Josh Lee, head of broadcast and media operations, Tennis Australia. The control facility was based in our broadcast compound and encoded for digital viewers and online platforms.
AO Animated is the latest in what has become a global trend of using tracking data to create new versions of live sports coverage. All such efforts share one goal: to drive engagement with younger, digital-first audiences. Because the feed is based on tracking data and not live video, Tennis Australia can deliver it live via YouTube, reaching fans anywhere around the globe.
Many sports face similar challenges when trying to engage with new and younger audiences, says Lee. The development of the AO Animated feeds is a deliberate effort to connect with and produce content for younger viewers. We also produced the AO BlueZone this year, which was a hybrid broadcast/digital product that aimed to bring more of the onsite experience to the offsite fan through behind-the-scenes vision, player interviews, and around-the-ground crosses and showcasing all the great video packages and features from the TA Original Content team.
AO Animated feeds were a hit with rightsholders. Eurosport and beIN Sports were among those adding it to their own streaming services.
By week two of the tournament, says Lee, we were providing the feeds to three broadcast partners to use on their own platforms. It has received some media attention, and the feedback has been really positive from a consumer and innovation perspective.
It remains to be seen whether the other major tennis tournaments (as well as ATP and WTA) are inspired to do similar animated coverage, but Lee says it would be good news for tennis if they did: If it creates a jumping-off point for new fans, the sport can only benefit from continuing to push the idea forward.
On the Broadcast Side Although AO Animated has captured the attention of YouTube and social-media users, it's the broadcast feed that meets the needs of international rightsholders like ESPN. The new EMG/Gravity Media deal builds on a long-standing relationship between Tennis Australia and EMG/Gravity Media. This year, TA has deployed more than 390 production crew members and 51 on-air talent to produce the Australian Open. And, Lee notes, EMG/Gravity provided 75 technical crew and engineers, and many other key broadcast-production vendors have helped bring the three-week event to life.
EMG/Gravity Media have been our provider for all 100 of our tennis productions over the past 11 years, says Lee. It has been one of the most technically smooth operations in memory, a testament to the ongoing collaboration and partnership between the two organizations.
The new deal includes facilities comprising 11 production galleries (equipped with a combination of Grass Valley K-Frame XP and Kahuna vision mixers) and 10 audio-control rooms (Calrec Artemis and Brio audio consoles). TA covers all matches across the outside courts via 11 ViBox vision-mixer systems. The system powers more than 130 control positions, with more than 150 multiviewers displaying an impressive 1,700 PIPs between them.
An IP-based large flyaway system, integrated with baseband signals, gives us a 4,000 4,000 IP matrix, including 1,500 1,500 baseband input and outputs, says Lee. An advanced audio solution, combining Audio Live and Calrec cores, facilitates the routing of over 2,500 audio signals across the facility.
This year's host broadcast has grown to more than 200 cameras with the addition of a second RF FX6 cinecam roaming the grounds.
The Australian Open rolled out cameras in the coaches boxes to give tennis fans more insight into the coaches' thoughts and reactions.
It's capturing fan color, Lee notes. We also have new coaches-box cameras on each of the top three courts, helping us capture all the moments from the new coaching pods that have elevated the profiles of the coaches. We have also given [fans] access to live data, analytics, and video.
An RF-camera network allows wireless signal transport for more than 20 live portable cameras, 70 behind-the-scenes cameras, eight beauty cameras, and several specialty systems: a Spidercam, Netcams, Comet Cameras, Flycam between Rod Laver Arena and John Cain Arena, and the 4DReplay system used at Laver last year.
The drone, provided by Flying Features, has been the star of the show this year, Lee says, operating each day of the main draw with almost unrestricted access across the grounds and integrated with specialty AR graphics.
Last year, the AO made news as the first tennis-production team in the world to add augmented elements to rep
