“If you look at all the big clubs, you can’t just get a season ticket – you have to sit on a waiting list.<\/p>\n
“There is also potential monetisation. You can charge, even if it’s a small amount, to give fans a different kind of viewpoint.”<\/p>\n
Football fan John Hemmingham, who runs the famous England supporters brass band, saw the funny side.<\/p>\n
“What happens if a robotic fan misbehaves?” he joked.<\/p>\n
“Gets aggressive, abusive, spills a drink… I can see it being fraught with danger. What if it sits in the wrong section? A robotic hooligan!”<\/p>\n
Chickens<\/strong><\/p>\n It is not easy being a Hanwha Eagles fan. In the past five years, they have suffered more than 400 losses – so many that fans of the team are regarded with a degree of sympathy, and have earned the nickname Buddhist Saints.<\/p>\n Less friendly opposition fans describe them as the Hanwha Chickens.<\/p>\n But those who cannot make it to the stadium now have the option of having a robot stand in for them.<\/p>\n As well as being able to control some robot movements, fans can upload their own face to the machine.<\/p>\n Sport for all<\/strong><\/p>\n While the robots supporting Hanwha will be dismissed as a gimmick by most diehard fans of any sport, there are other, more serious attempts to help more people experience matches.<\/p>\n As part of Japan’s unsuccessful bid for the 2022 World Cup, the country said it hoped to re-create live matches using holographic technology in other locations. It would mean, in theory, that several stadiums full of fans could be watching the same match at once.<\/p>\n Development on the technology was halted when Japan lost its bid, with Fifa instead choosing Qatar to host the 2022 tournament.<\/p>\n Independent experts were sceptical the virtual reality plan could have ever worked – but praised the ambition.<\/p>\n In the nearer term, simple technology additions to stadiums and arenas are already changing how we enjoy sport.<\/p>\n “Within a short amount of time, nearly every Premier League stadium will have wi-fi,” said Mr Cutler.<\/p>\n “Everyone’s got a phone with them, checking other things. The days have gone where people are completely engrossed in the match.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A struggling Korean baseball team have invented a novel way to improve atmosphere at their matches – by bringing in a crowd of robot fans. Hanwha Eagles supporters not able to get to the stadium can control the robot over the internet. The bots can cheer, chant and perform a Mexican wave – but presumably […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-34686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-akwasi-osei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hanwha](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/76521000\/jpg\/_76521974_76521973.jpg\")
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