The widely-known Australian Open just launched the first professional tennis event within the Decentraland Metaverse — and it was a smash hit. Covered: Australian Open Metaverse Reality Is Going Virtual The Australian Open (AO) is a professional tennis tournament that’s typically hosted in Melbourne, Australia. As the metaverse trend continues to bleed into the mainstream […] The post Australian Open Brings Professional Tennis To The Metaverse appeared first on CryptosRus.

Australian Open Brings Professional Tennis To The Metaverse

The widely-known Australian Open just launched the first professional tennis event within the Decentraland Metaverse — and it was a smash hit.

Covered:

  • Australian Open Metaverse
  • Reality Is Going Virtual

The Australian Open (AO) is a professional tennis tournament that’s typically hosted in Melbourne, Australia. As the metaverse trend continues to bleed into the mainstream conversation, however, AO is taking the opportunity to bring its famous tennis tournament experience online.

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Australian Open Metaverse

About a week ago, Decentraland announced that it would be hosting the Australian Open Metaverse, which is currently taking place at the time of publishing.

Let’s see how it looks to be going so far:

With nine days left in the event, the tournament has already hit some impressive numbers — peak active visitor attendance reportedly hit around 28,286 at the Grand Slam Oval Screens showing the Practice Village.

AO also created its own unique tennis ball NFTs, “Art Balls,” to pair with the experience. Each 3D-animation NFT contains unique data from a particular tennis match. They’re currently being actively traded on the top NFT marketplace Open Sea with a floor price of about 0.1 Ethereum (ETH) at the time of writing. Each NFT is mapped to a very small section of the AO court (using the same technology players use to challenge a point), allowing players to purchase a specific moment of the game if they so choose. Each NFT is also updated with new data as the tournament progresses, adding further rarity to the NFT if something special happens during the game.

So far, the NFTs have done a little over 1,600 ETH ($3.5 million) in volume, with over 4,300 Art Balls being sold at an average price of 0.3 ETH ($660).

As reported by Blockworks, Simon Kertonegoro, CEO of MyMetaverse, thinks the potential is there but the execution still has a ways to go.

“Australian Open’s adoption of NFTs and the metaverse is amazing for visibility but its actual execution has left a lot to be desired…I’m looking forward to a future where the NFTs you receive from these events are actually usable in video games and the metaverse experience of viewing sports is more like 3D multi-directional viewing where the viewer can move his or her avatar around the court and watch the game from whatever angle he or she desires.”

Reality Is Going Virtual

When the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the global economy back in 2020, people had to get creative to come up with solutions to the problems posed by the virus. I think one of the biggest shifts we’ve seen since the onset of the pandemic is the digitization of the traditional work environment. Many meetings that were once taking place in the office are now being held over Zoom calls. Sure, this is a blanket statement. Not all jobs have gone online, but the trend is clear: we’ve become more reliant on technology to get work done.

If we are going to be having more online experiences, then it could be a good idea to have a more interactive virtual experience than Zoom. And of course, this applies to all major industries, including sports.

Here’s an interesting trend:

People are now searching for NFTs more than crypto, and if I had to bet, I imagine this emerging diversion will continue to widen as NFTs go mainstream. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? Not everyone will have to learn about crypto, as that mostly describes a lot of the backend technology building the metaverse’s infrastructure.

However, NFTs are the front-facing product of the industry; it’s the touchpoint that most average consumers will have with crypto. Buying tickets to games, digital collectibles of their favorite players, and everything else that we’ll think of, NFTs are what the consumers see.

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Growing an industry like sports is all about catching more eyes and attention, and with the innovation proposed by virtual reality, we have an opportunity to reach more viewers than ever before and monetize that experience for global communities ready to throw money at their favorite team.

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