Anyone for crypto tennis?

Tennis Australia is inviting fans globally to attend the Australian Open via a virtual reconstruction of the Rod Laver Arena.

Fans can buy a patch of Rod Laver Arena using a non-fungible token (NFT) that gives them the rights to a 19cm x 19cm area of centre court.

Tennis Australia is inviting fans globally to attend the Australian Open via a virtual reconstruction of the Rod Laver Arena.

Fans can also buy a patch of the arena using a non-fungible token (NFT) that gives them the rights to a 19cm x 19cm area of centre court. They will win a prize should the last bounce of the ball fall into their square during match point in any of the approximately 450 matches during the tournament in Melbourne. Prizes will be awarded for men‘s and women’s singles, doubles, mixed doubles and wheelchair events.

Fans will be able to access the virtualised Rod Laver Arena from January 17 through the portal Decentreland, walk around it using a keyboard and mouse, watch tennis action on big screens as they go, and buy items in a virtual shop.

They can enter centre court and play a game with a virtualised tennis ball machine.

Fans wanting a patch of centre court and the ability to win prizes can buy NFTs from 10am on January 13. However, they will need to buy them with the cryptocurrency ethereum which means obtaining ethereum through a crypto exchange. One square costs 0.067 Eth. which currently is about $354. Details will be at the site ao.artball.io.

The virtualised Rod Laver Arena in Decentraland that fans from anywhere in the world can experience. Picture: Tennis Australia.

“Tennis Australia has always been known as being incredibly innovative and forward thinking in everything that we do with regards to both our organisation and the event itself as well,” said Ridley Plummer, Tennis Australia’s metaverse & NFT project manager.

This includes men‘s and women’s singles, doubles, mixed doubles and wheelchair events.

Mr Plummer said Tennis Australia would use its Hawk-Eye computer vision system to determine exactly which of the 6776 available squares on the court that the ball falls into.

Tennis Australia is the latest body to embrace non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which not only offer a secure way to show proof of ownership of real world and virtual objects, but also ownership of vision of sporting moments or fan experiences with sporting heroes.

NFTs have already proved popular with arts and music sales and are being embraced by sporting bodies.

NFTs worth $US300m were dished out to show proof of purchase of artworks in January and February of last year alone. And last year the US National Basketball Association’s Top Shot product generated more than $US230m in gross sales.

Mr Plummer said that from 10am on January 17, fans could access the virtualised Rod Laver Arena through the portal Decentreland, walk around it using a keyboard and mouse, watch tennis action on big screens as they go, and buy items in a virtual shop.

Australian Open Metaverse and NFT Project Manager Ridley Plummer

Run It Wild Director & Decentraland Head of Partnerships Adam De Cata

They can enter centre court and play a game with a virtualised tennis ball machine. He saw the experience as an example of what the metaverse can offer.

Tennis Australia engaged blockchain studio and metaverse specialist Run It Wild to engineer the two experiences.

Mr Plummer said Tennis Australia expected to raise $2.4m if all the NFTs sell, with the majority of funds going to charitable causes, the Australian Tennis Foundation and carbon offsetting.

“Funds raised will be directed towards the delivery of Tennis Hot Shots programs across Australia’s indigenous communities in partnership with local indigenous organisations and State Member Associations,” he said, adding the remainder of funds will pay for development.

Adam De Cata, director at Run It Wild, said each NFT would be accompanied by a virtual tennis ball which was unique down to the fuzz of the ball. Of the 6776 NFTs, 169 will have custom designs from winners of the AO Artist Series competition.

Some 22 NFTs will be wrapped in historical AO artwork while the remaining 6585 NFTs will be randomly created using an algorithmic combination of unique colour schemes, patterns and textures.

“For years now, we‘ve kind of dabbled in virtual reality and online gaming with our AR games and it seemed like the next natural progression was into the metaverse and NFT’s,” Mr Plummer said.

He believed there were plenty of blockchain-savvy tennis fans in the NFT space capable of buying a square of the court using cryptocurrency.