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Tennis Expands Gaming Tie-ins To Win Next Generation of Fans (ft.com) 25

Posted by msmash from the whatever-it-takes dept.
Tennis is betting on video games to lure young fans. Two titles are set to compete: TopSpin 2K25, out now, and Tiebreak, coming in August. TopSpin lets players match legends like Federer against newcomers like Alcaraz. Tiebreak, backed by pro tours, features Djokovic on its cover.

The push comes as TV viewership among youth plummets. Only a third of 18-24 year-olds watch live matches, versus 75% of over-55s. Game makers claim playing increases the odds of buying tickets and hitting real courts. Football's EA Sports FC, with 150 million users, has shown gaming's pull. Tennis officials hope pixelated rallies will spark real-world passion.
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Tennis Expands Gaming Tie-ins To Win Next Generation of Fans More

Tennis Expands Gaming Tie-ins To Win Next Generation of Fans

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  • Paywalled.

    • Not exactly. msmash is a big tennis fan, occasionally posting tennis stuff to slashdot that is really off-topic for the site in general. I think the name is basically m-smash, smash referring to this:

      https://thetennisbros.com/tenn... [thetennisbros.com]

      No idea where the m comes from.

  • Who actually likes or follows tennis? I'm almost 50. I'm not a wealthy person myself, but I run in circles that include the sorts who spend weekends at country clubs. Is it a European thing? I used to work for ESPN Radio. Nobody THERE was any more interested in it than they had to appear to be for on-air segments about it, the same kind of enthusiasm they had for US Pro soccer and several steps down from golf or women's basketball.

    So really, what's up with tennis fandom?

    • I will admit to not being a "sports person".

      That said, I mean, I would watch something like tennis, ping pong, golf, baseball, hockey, basketball or even SOCCER and similar shit for 5 minutes or something. How anyone can watch it for hours on end is beyond me.

      Most of those are pretty much the same thing, watching people hit or move something back and forth, back and forth, back and forth....it's just fucking boring!! Especially the low-scoring shit that can end with a "shoot out", the most ridiculous method

      • I don't know how you financially have it make any sense but I would love if ESPN did "The Ocho" [wikipedia.org] as an actual full channel. There's so many fun competitive things out there.

        • I have no idea what your post is about.

          • ESPN8 The Ocho is an annual special program block showcasing seldom-seen obscure sports that airs on the networks of ESPN Inc.

            The Ocho consists of lesser-known, unconventional and humorous sports and other competitions with some athletic or physical skill component, including roller derby, crossnet, Quidditch, trampoline dodgeball, air hockey, darts, disc golf, kabaddi, chess boxing, bed races, sport stacking, electrician games, dodge juggle, death diving, cherry pit spitting, robot fighting, firefighter ga

      • Like NASCAR, cars go round and round, round and round, round and round, and you're waiting for wrecks !!!

    • Who actually likes or follows tennis?

      msmash. Occasionally posts crap to slashdot about some big tennis player taking some big win or something like that. If you don't care about tennis at all, then you'll find yourself having the occasional "wtf does this have to do with slashdot?" moment and inevitably here. Well, there's your connection, it's because msmash had a tennis elbow flareup so he had to sit down and talk about tennis because he can't tennis right now.

    • I started my girls in tennis at age 4 just to get them to do activities. It got them more interested in physical activities, better than sitting on their ass like most kids. Tennis like cycling is huge in EU. Ain’t nobody in the US care for them, yet Tour De France/Wimbeldon/French Open are massive. It’s like you asking “who is actually into cricket”.

    • There's lots of sports in the US where there's kind of a niche fanbase. Good examples would be hockey, tennis, and horse-related sports. I've met people who played hockey and tennis growing up and even some people who did equestrian sports. There's not a huge fanbase like football, but the fans that do exist are rich. If you watch a tennis event, you'll see commercials for Rolex.

      And yeah, Europeans like tennis. I had a Serbian coworker who was very interested in tennis and was training his sons to be c

    • My wife and I took a community ed tennis class with a couple of friends and had a blast. If you live someplace with a good parks system, tennis is a pretty cheap way to spend an afternoon.

      As for ESPN radio, it's a big part of the rot at the heart of American sports. They chase controversy above all, filling endless hours of airtime with endless trade talk, beef-promotion, and meaningless speculation, when they could be broadcasting, you know, sports. One of my favorite parts of the early pandemic was w
    • It usually helps viewership if one of your nationals plays well on that given sport. Nadal being Spanish makes a lot of Spanish people interested in tennis matches that involve Nadal. Some may watch other matches but interest on other players is generally lower. It is great there are two players on top that build expectation whenever they play against. Other sports just becomes less interesting when there is an obvious leader, e.g. Michael Schumacher on Formula 1 many years ago.

      Most people I now would rath

  • These numbers must be wrong (Score:3)

    by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Monday July 01, 2024 @01:46PM (#64592823) Homepage

    I can't read the article thanks to the paywall, but "Only a third of 18-24 year-olds watch live matches, versus 75% of over-55s" must be wrong. Maybe this is 1/3 of tennis players 18-24 watch live matches? The idea that 1/3 of that group has anything to do with tennis is a joke.

    • The article doesn't say anything about those numbers being specific to tennis. That is, my interpretation (and it is written unclearly) is "only a third of 18-24 year olds watch ANY SPORT live matches"

      You can take the URL, go to an archiving site like archive.is, search for the URL, and see if it was previously archived. This article was.

  • I don't really watch live anything on TV, or broadcast TV for that matter.
  • Nah. Bettors are not fans of what they bet on. They are fans of the rush and uncertainty of the bet. It's sad seeing sports selling their souls to companies that would just as soon bankrupt the whole endeavor in a futile effort to "grow" the sport.

  • I used to be able to watch some kind of live matches for free on most days but that stopped happening during the pandemic when most sports shut down for a year or two. It all went to the Tennis Channel which has a monthly subscription. I like watching tennis at times but not enough to pay monthly.

    Now I just get to see the finals or semifinals of the major tournaments if I happen to remember they are on. So it isn't at all surprising that most people don't watch live matches, they aren't very accessible.

  • The 1st video game system/game sold was Pong, B/W, 2 paddles and a ball, hit back and forth..aka Tennis !
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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