SVG Europe
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A new front is being opened up in the way sports are covered. Real-time digital twins, immersive AR experiences, and live gaming are bringing sports to a new generation of fans.
“Because we have that digital twin, we can use it in many different ways from broadcast graphics to augmented reality, virtual reality, gaming and more,” says Rosemary Lokhorst, co-founder and CEO of Badass Studios, which has developed a real-time digital twin platform powering XR fan engagement and shared-reality activations for live sports, broadcast, gaming, and immersive events. “XR creates experiences that go beyond what’s possible at the track.”
Badass Studios, which is headquartered south of London, was launched during Covid in September 2020 by Alexander Sangwin-Skillen, who has a background in live event design, and Ben Douglas, who worked on M&As at GE Capital before moving into sports marketing.
One of their early projects was with Red Bull. They took a Rocket League esports game and mapped it onto Wembley Stadium so it could be played in virtual reality. “Instead of two teams playing in a conventional virtual arena, you could actually see the cars driving around the pitch inside Wembley,” Lokhorst explains.
Lokhorst joined two years later as co-founder bringing expertise in gamification and narrative storytelling. She is the writer and producer of multiple award-winning children’s game Shadow’s Edge which doubles as a therapy tool for emotional health.
“My role was to help Alex and Ben think about the commercial model and what they could do with their technology,” she explains. “Pretty quickly we made a joint decision: instead of continuing as an event production company, we would focus entirely on the technology platform behind these experiences.”
The vision became creating real-time digital twins of live events.
There’s also a commercial angle. Ticket prices to premium live events are becoming extreme. Match tickets for the FIFA World Cup this summer range from $190 (£142) to $790 (£591) for the round of 32, with tickets on the secondary market much higher. A concert ticket for a major act that costs £180 in the UK might cost $1,700 in the US.
“If you can offer a virtual experience for $100, millions of people could participate,” she says. “Our business model reflects that. Our platform is licensed, customers choose the modules they want — AR broadcast, VR experiences, gaming distribution — and then we share [a percentage of] the revenue generated.”
Data capture: E1 racing
Recently, the studio worked on the UIM E1 Series Championship for electric powerboats. Its process starts by mapping the locations well in advance. For example, the calendar for the 2026 E1 series is known a year ahead, travelling to locations such as Jeddah, Miami, Monaco, Dubrovnik or Lake Como.
“We begin by using Cesium (a plugin to Unreal which is used to render Google’s Photorealistic 3D Tiles), which gives us a base version of the environment,” Lokhorst explains. “Then we interrogate it closely, because sometimes the resolution isn’t high enough. When that happens, we replace important elements ourselves.
“For example, if there are iconic buildings, like Villa d’Este on Lake Como, we rebuild them in Unreal Engine. That gives us a detailed base environment.
“Then we adjust elements we want to manipulate. Water is a good example: if boats are racing, we need realistic spray, wakes and movement. We also add assets we’ve already built, such as sponsor logos and structures like the Ocean Club paddock.”
The boats themselves are also pre-built using actual CAD drawings for accuracy. Around two weeks before the race Badass receives additional data, including the exact racetrack. It uses a tool in its own platform called Track Mapper to plot data points on the map. This automatically generates the racetrack and sponsor placements.
During the race itself, Badass ingest live telemetry from Al Kamel, the official data provider. This includes GPS position, speed, throttle, trim, weather conditions and more. This is mapped onto the virtual environment effectively creating two parallel worlds: the real race environment, with the actual boat; and a virtual environment, where the same boats, branding and movement exist in real time.
During the broadcast Badass has the ability to move sponsorship branding dynamically.
“For example, if a key moment happens near the final corner, we can reposition sponsor branding there so that it gets maximum visibility during the action,” she says.
“Our platform is essentially the underlying layer. On top of that, customers can choose modules such as AR, VR or mixed-reality broadcast tools.”
Virtual broadcast is a fully digital environment with cameras placed anywhere desired. “Because it’s virtual, we can position cameras overhead, track the action dynamically, or place them in impossible locations,” she adds.
“If broadcasters want the real footage but with digital graphics and sponsor placements, we simply remove the environment and boats from the virtual scene and overlay the AR elements onto the live broadcast.”
There’s also the possibility to run the same environment on simulators at the event itself. “Visitors can sit in a simulator and race on the same track using the same data. They can race against each other, or choose a mode we call Live GP, where they race against the actual drivers on the water.
“Because we know the exact location of the real boats from telemetry, players can literally compete against teams like Tom Brady’s team or Will Smith’s team while the race is happening.”
At events, people can experience the simulator either on a standard screen or with a Meta Quest 3 headset. Badass is also exploring support for Apple Vision Pro for higher-resolution experiences. Additionally, the game can be played through a browser.
“We’ve also published a closed beta on Steam, and later this year we plan to release the game publicly so people can race from home — even racing live against the real pilots,” Lokhorst says.
Badass is also creating digital twin activations for Extreme E, the sustainable race car series, which like UIM E1 is founded by Alejandro Agag. Features such as VR cockpit views give fans the thrill of sitting in the driver’s seat, while AR overlays provide real-time stats and insights unavailable in person. These technologies let fans access multiple perspectives, behind-the-scenes content, and interactive features that deepen their connection to the race.
The studio has worked with global motocross series WSX and mixed martial arts organisation PFL, repurposing data into live AR overlays on the broadcast or virtual game sims.
“Our long-term vision includes team sports as well,” Lokhorst says. “Imagine watching tennis or soccer or American football in virtual reality. You could enter the stadium virtually, choose your seat, and watch the match from anywhere. You might even stand on the pitch during a penalty.
She says Badass is also in discussions with a cricket league. “Some sports are simply hard to watch closely in the real world — sailing or boat racing, for example. In a virtual environment you can move anywhere you want.”
Beyond sports
Entertainment is a natural extension. “Imagine attending a Taylor Swift concert virtually, but in real time. You could walk to the front of the stage or dance alongside avatars performing the choreography,” Lokhorst says.
Virtual concerts are not new. Examples include ABBA Voyage or the Travis Scott concert in Fortnite. “But those are usually recorded experiences,” she says. “What we want to create are live shared moments that feel interactive.”
Among the challenges that need to be overcome are the ability to create a social experience within an immersive environment, so the fan experiencing a virtual live event doesn’t feel isolated. The second is delivering a live real time and increasingly personalised experience without breaking the bit budget for connectivity.
On the first, Lokhorst says the approach is to rebuild environments such as stadiums and populate them with other avatars.
“Of course, we can’t realistically place 40,000 people in the same virtual instance. Instead, you see the people within your field of view, and the rest are simulated based on data. The goal is to create the feeling of a shared space.”
Managing bitrate is more complex but approaches here include sending only the data that is needed for the person’s field of view.
“The base environment is the same for everyone and that gets distributed once. The only data moving across the network are the dynamic elements — things like where the boats are. This is similar to how online games like Grand Theft Auto operate. The world exists locally, and the server simply updates the dynamic data.”
In terms of connectivity, Badass utilises a mix of fibre connections, WiFi and 5G, depending on the location. When there’s a broadcast setup already in place, it often piggybacks on their infrastructure.
“5G can be inconsistent depending on the area, so we expect 6G to provide wider and more reliable coverage. At the moment our latency is extremely low — around 0.0018 seconds — which is already sufficient for real-time experiences.”
AI accelerator
The studio has just been accepted into Dell’s AI Accelerator programme which Lokhorst says will help them to optimise the infrastructure.
“One area we’re exploring with Dell is how AI can reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted by predicting certain events,” she explains.
AI is already boosting its capability to build digital twins. LLMs help in development workflows for coding assistance, documentation and standardising processes. AI is also able to collect, clean and organise telemetry data far more efficiently than before.
“We also use synthetic data,” she says. “For example, if we want to pitch a race to a new city like Hong Kong, we can simulate an entire race environment with generated data and show officials what it would look like.
“AI also fills data gaps. If a camera feed drops during a race, we can temporarily switch to the virtual broadcast and use predictive data to maintain the continuity. For certain environment elements, generative AI can automatically fill in buildings along a coastline. Beyond that, AI helps with predictive modelling — for example predicting optimal race lines, which can be used for training simulations.”
Similar applications were promised several years ago during the first wave of metaverse hype and the arrival of 5G.
“A lot has changed technologically since then,” she says. “Compute power has increased, rendering engines like Unreal have improved dramatically, and high-resolution environments are easier to transmit over the internet.
“AI has accelerated development. Where building a game environment or a city like Miami once took about a year, we can now do it in two to six weeks. Today it’s becoming more industrial and practical. Sectors like military training and healthcare simulations have helped improve the underlying technology and infrastructure.”
True mixed reality experiences
So much so that Lokhorst believes that traditional sport and virtual worlds will increasingly converge.
“I think we’re moving towards true mixed reality experiences. Imagine being able walk onto the pitch alongside Lamine Yamal when he steps up during a penalty shoot-out. Or standing next to a Formula One pit stop in the virtual world. Or practice keepy-uppy with David Beckham. Or paying to have the Ted Lasso seat if I want.
These would all be avatar experiences, but younger audiences are comfortable with that. It could also bring families together. Parents might watch the broadcast normally, while children interact with the same event through the virtual layer.
“Ultimately, it’s about creating more shared moments.”
