FOX puts fans in the stands with help from AR startup

How can you have fans and still keep the stadiums empty?

Fox Sports’ Major League Baseball coverage will fill the empty, pandemic-era stands with digital fans that can cheer, boo and do “The Wave.”

As Fox Sports embarks on its 25th season of “MLB on FOX” this Saturday (with a “quadruple-header,” detailed below), the network will debut its latest broadcasting innovation – “virtual fans” who can sport team colors as they fill seats that otherwise have been rendered empty due to coronavirus concerns/social distancing.

“Utilizing cutting-edge Pixatope software, the network teams with Silver Spoon Animation and SMT to deliver an elevated viewing experience to sports fans around the nation,” states a press release.

Silver Spoon can also control how dense or sparse the audience is throughout the game in real-time. The fans in the stands will resemble and move like real people and are fully customizable.

This all starts on Saturday, during FOX's MLB coverage.