“The way sports are played has changed and that is why we need to revolutionize traditional sports towards entertainment. The new generations want change, can’t stand a full game and pay more attention to the networks, alternative channels or multiscreens. They want much shorter and more exciting things. There are ideas that are coming out and others that are emerging ». Gerard Piqué, former Barcelona player and leader of the Kosmos company, famous for hosting the Davis Cup in tennis and the groundbreaking Kings League in football until last year, comments in several interviews on Twitch, the way forward for the world of sports and its conception as entertainment. Reinventing everything seems to be in fashion. Nothing seems fun for young people and they try to adapt the disciplines so that they have a mix of competition and a dose of ‘show’. Tiafoe, the tennis player breaking with the canons of clothing in the racquet world, recently said that other things need to happen in his sport to reach young people, a view shared days later by Jessica Pegula, current number 3 in the WTA ranking : “It’s something that could help this sport.” The French player raised his voice a few days ago to open the debate over allowing fans to speak and move during matches, replacing the silence of the stands with the noise of other sports. In the run-up to the Mutua Madrid Open, things have gone a little further than cheering and mobility between fans’ points. On the eve of the event that runs until May 7, the tournament organized an innovative competition with a festive atmosphere and a format far from the usual classic to get closer to what could be seen in the tennis world in the future. Under the name of RedBull Bassline, the tournament brought together eight of the best rackets competing in this Masters 1,000, with a fast-paced format, where matches lasted 10-15 minutes, to the best of three tiebreaks and with the background music of a live DJ, which not only cheers up during the breaks. The speed of the games meant that fans saw all of these players in just two hours into the tournament. As a curiosity between game and play, the tennis players warmed up on the field with exercise bikes next to each of the benches. There were a total of seven matches – four quarter-finals, two semi-finals and one final – with short, intense battles. Without a chair umpire making the decisions, in the style of the curious ‘ultimate Frisbee’, it was the players themselves who determined the rules of the game. The umpires’ usual job is covered by sensors implanted in the lines that determine which ball has gone out. “It’s a completely different experience: the rules, the music… when you’ve competed in silence all your life, it’s very different to listen to music during points. It’s a lot of fun,” said recent Monte Carlo Masters 1,000 winner Andrey Rublev to what Stefanos Tsitsipas, the world number five, considered “a breath of fresh air.”
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
