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- Decentraland will host the Australian tennis tournament for a span of two weeks.
- They want this AO to be the most accessible and inclusive event of sports and entertainment in the world, said Ridley Plummer.
- This virtual tournament will be a treat for the fans as tennis players meet-ups, BTS, and a lot more are arranged for them.
Decentraland is going to host the Australian Open (AO) as the Australian Tennis has recently partnered with it. This is the very first official grand slam conducted in the Metaverse.
The AO tournament will run for a fortnight commencing on Jan 17. There will be recreations of the significant areas of Melbourne park like the Grand Slam park and the Rod Laver Arena.
It will be a treat for the virtual visitors as the event will include unique content like 300 cameras around the stadium will cover behind-the-scenes, which will include the practice village and player arrivals area. In fact, along with the live footage and the AO radio, archival footage from the matches held in the 70s will also be broadcasted. Mark Philippoussis is confirmed for a virtual meet-up, though other players are yet to be confirmed. Fans can also move around the city in the Virtual world.
Ridley Plummer, the Project Manager for the Tennis Australia NFT and Metaverse, while addressing in a Virtual welcome on Decentraland, said that they want this AO to turn out to be the world’s most accessible and inclusive event of sports and entertainment. And that they’ve progressed towards the launch in Metaverse a bit faster with the challenges that were faced by the fans to get to Melbourne.
Due to the Covid restrictions, it was getting a bit difficult for the fans to reach Melbourne and enjoy the event for real. Also, AO faced challenges like the lockdown restrictions plus a relatively low number of onsite spectators. And this option to host the event in Decentraland seems to be appropriate.
Plummer also conveyed that in the future, Ao would continue to collaborate with Decentraland, and they’re in there for the long term. They are also about entertainment as well as just Tennis, and it will be evident through their roadmap whether they’re providing entertainment through the Metaverse only for a few months or the whole year.
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AO’s other partnership with Sweet NFT platform:
On Jan 17, AO also announced collaborating with Sweet, an NFT platform, and will release six NFT collections celebrating AO’s last five decades. These collections will be released over a period of Jan 17 to Jan 27 in accordance with the tournament. According to the CEO of Sweet, this is a new way for fans to access their idol’s world.
Earlier in the last week, AO launched a collection of 6,776 Art Balls NFTs on OpenSea. Plummer said that this collection sold out in just three minutes after the public sale went live.
Also, very recently, the Australian court dismissed the Serbian Tennis player Navok Djokovic’s appeal against a deportation order because he was unvaccinated.
Keeping the covid situations in mind, this decision of Tennis Australia and Decentraland’s partnership to host the Australian Open in a Metaverse seems appropriate as it ensures the safety of the fans as well as their entertainment. It might prove to be an adventurous experience for the fans to attend the tournament virtually.