People

How tech is packing empty stadiums with (fake) raucous crowds

Computer-generated fans could allow smaller sports events to make it big on TV.

A baseball game with fake fans

Real game, fake fans: Fox Sports is filling empty stadiums with computer-generated fans for MLB games during COVID.

Photo: Courtesy of Fox Sports

When Fox Sports aired the first MLB games of the new, shortened season this past weekend, it filled parts of the stadium with digital people, as the pandemic is keeping the real ones at home. These virtual crowds were a first for U.S. sports, but we'll likely see a lot more examples in the coming months. CGI animators have seen a flood of incoming requests to generate crowds for sports events and concerts alike, and insiders say that the trend could provide the industry with new opportunities even after COVID subsides.

Fox Sports only added CGI crowds to some of its camera feeds, leading to a somewhat dissonant mixture of shots of empty seats and shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. The results were nonetheless real enough to confuse some viewers. "Fox fooled me for a second with the digital fans," wrote one viewer on Twitter. Another asked: "Wait there are fans there? Are they all wearing masks?"

Movies, commercials and video games have long used virtual crowds as stand-ins for real humans, but up until now, the craft of generating those digital crowds has gotten very little attention. "There is really no difference between a crowd and a tree," said Dan Warom, who has been producing digital crowds for visual-effects company The Mill around 15 years.

Crowds provide important visual cues to viewers, allowing them to get a sense of scale in a scene. But if CGI artists do their work well, crowds simply blend into the background. "Everyone needs it. But it is not sexy," Warom acknowledged about his line of work.

That changed dramatically over the past several months, as sports leagues and broadcasters tried to figure out how to safely bring sports back to TV. Leagues initially used cardboard cutouts, stuffed animals and even sex dolls to fill the stands, often while augmenting games with prerecorded crowd noise, which itself has come from video games in some cases.

At the same time, the industry began to look for technology that could help make games look and feel more familiar. "Most of the big broadcasters started to seek out a solution to this," Epic Games product manager Andy Blondin said. Epic is best known for Fortnite, but the company also makes the Unreal Engine, a key production tool for video games that is increasingly being embraced by the entertainment industry as well.

Over the past few years, Hollywood has been moving away from adding visual effects in post-processing and toward generating them in real time while actors are being recorded playing in front of green screens. This approach gives directors of feature films a way to watch an approximation of the final shot live on set, an approach that Lucasfilm's visual effects unit ILM used extensively for the latest "Star Wars" movies.

The same technology also makes it possible to add virtual fans to sports games in real time, but there are some unique challenges. For one thing, sports games are being broadcast live, and crowds have to be overlaid over the actual camera feed without noticeable delays. As a result, broadcasters may have to compromise on visual complexity — something that some viewers complained about. The digital assets to create these crowds also have to be customized for each game, "to dress them properly, to put the jerseys in there," Blondin said. "All the nuances that make them feel real."

Adding to the illusion are AI algorithms that allow these virtual fans to respond to cues from the game. Fan behavior in a baseball stadium is very predictable, with viewers sitting on their chairs for much of the game, only to jump up and cheer when someone hits a home run. "The actual AI requirements are very, very low," Warom said, adding that AI can also be used to lighten things up a bit: "You can have the wave propagate through the crowd."

The technology that is now being tested by Fox Sports and others could come in handy even in a post-COVID world, after fans are allowed back into stadiums. For instance, it could give smaller regional sports teams a chance to shine. "For smaller stadiums, you may be able to augment with a second deck," Blondin said.

Broadcasters could potentially also augment and air games that traditionally happen without sizable crowds, like training matches. A team could have its training match on a regular field, and a broadcaster could then add a whole virtual stadium to the TV feed. "It's the difference between playing for the Premier League and playing [on] Sunday morning," Warom said. Adding virtual crowds could also give smaller leagues new revenue opportunities, for instance through commercials. Warom even mused that one day, parents may be able to add virtual crowds to their kids' Little League games.

In the more immediate future, the technology is being adopted by music festivals and others looking to put on believable digital events without real crowds during COVID. Having broadcasters like Fox Sports pilot digital crowds has demonstrated the possibility of the technology, according to business-development manager at Epic Games, Craig Laliberte. "It's opening up a lot of doors," he said.

Fintech

Judge Zia Faruqui is trying to teach you crypto, one ‘SNL’ reference at a time

His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. Strangelove." That’s because he wants you — yes, you — to read them.

The ways Zia Faruqui (right) has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster.

Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Cryptocurrency and related software analytics tools are ‘The wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic.’”

That’s not a quote from "The Big Lebowski" — at least, not directly. It’s a quote from a Washington, D.C., district court memorandum opinion on the role cryptocurrency analytics tools can play in government investigations. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.

Keep ReadingShow less
Veronica Irwin

Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.

The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance. Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more.

Keep ReadingShow less
FTA
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) represents industry leaders shaping the future of finance. We champion the power of technology-centered financial services and advocate for the modernization of financial regulation to support inclusion and responsible innovation.
Enterprise

AWS CEO: The cloud isn’t just about technology

As AWS preps for its annual re:Invent conference, Adam Selipsky talks product strategy, support for hybrid environments, and the value of the cloud in uncertain economic times.

Photo: Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

AWS is gearing up for re:Invent, its annual cloud computing conference where announcements this year are expected to focus on its end-to-end data strategy and delivering new industry-specific services.

It will be the second re:Invent with CEO Adam Selipsky as leader of the industry’s largest cloud provider after his return last year to AWS from data visualization company Tableau Software.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donna Goodison

Donna Goodison (@dgoodison) is Protocol's senior reporter focusing on enterprise infrastructure technology, from the 'Big 3' cloud computing providers to data centers. She previously covered the public cloud at CRN after 15 years as a business reporter for the Boston Herald. Based in Massachusetts, she also has worked as a Boston Globe freelancer, business reporter at the Boston Business Journal and real estate reporter at Banker & Tradesman after toiling at weekly newspapers.

Image: Protocol

We launched Protocol in February 2020 to cover the evolving power center of tech. It is with deep sadness that just under three years later, we are winding down the publication.

As of today, we will not publish any more stories. All of our newsletters, apart from our flagship, Source Code, will no longer be sent. Source Code will be published and sent for the next few weeks, but it will also close down in December.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bennett Richardson

Bennett Richardson ( @bennettrich) is the president of Protocol. Prior to joining Protocol in 2019, Bennett was executive director of global strategic partnerships at POLITICO, where he led strategic growth efforts including POLITICO's European expansion in Brussels and POLITICO's creative agency POLITICO Focus during his six years with the company. Prior to POLITICO, Bennett was co-founder and CMO of Hinge, the mobile dating company recently acquired by Match Group. Bennett began his career in digital and social brand marketing working with major brands across tech, energy, and health care at leading marketing and communications agencies including Edelman and GMMB. Bennett is originally from Portland, Maine, and received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University.

Enterprise

Why large enterprises struggle to find suitable platforms for MLops

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, and as larger enterprises go from deploying hundreds of models to thousands and even millions of models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

Photo: artpartner-images via Getty Images

On any given day, Lily AI runs hundreds of machine learning models using computer vision and natural language processing that are customized for its retail and ecommerce clients to make website product recommendations, forecast demand, and plan merchandising. But this spring when the company was in the market for a machine learning operations platform to manage its expanding model roster, it wasn’t easy to find a suitable off-the-shelf system that could handle such a large number of models in deployment while also meeting other criteria.

Some MLops platforms are not well-suited for maintaining even more than 10 machine learning models when it comes to keeping track of data, navigating their user interfaces, or reporting capabilities, Matthew Nokleby, machine learning manager for Lily AI’s product intelligence team, told Protocol earlier this year. “The duct tape starts to show,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kate Kaye

Kate Kaye is an award-winning multimedia reporter digging deep and telling print, digital and audio stories. She covers AI and data for Protocol. Her reporting on AI and tech ethics issues has been published in OneZero, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, CityLab, Ad Age and Digiday and heard on NPR. Kate is the creator of RedTailMedia.org and is the author of "Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about how the 2008 presidential campaigns used digital media and data.

Latest Stories
Bulletins