In January, 900,000 visitors attended the Australian Open (AO) tennis event in real life, with remote visitors able to engage via the metaverse. AO expanded its web3 offering in 2023, aiming to make AO the most accessible sports and entertainment event.
This year, the virtual events consisted of the AO ArtBall 2023 and the AO metaverse. AO Artball linked NFTs to a 19x19cm plot on the tennis court, and if the winning shot from any Australian Open match landed on the spot, the data was recorded on the NFT. The owner was then provided with benefits like wearables, the winning tennis ball in case of a championship game, and ground passes for the finals week of the tournament in the successive year. The AO metaverse involved a virtual hosting of the game alongside other virtual events in Decentraland, a 3D virtual world platform.
The Australian Open’s venture is seen as one of the more successful entries of sports events into web3. In an interview during yesterday’s SportsPro Ignition event, the Australian Open’s Ridley Plummer discussed the innovations made by AO in this space and threw some light on the learnings from its digital strategy.
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