When it comes to the world of sports, you know that the home team will have the added advantage of not having to travel, in addition to enjoying the support of the home fans – who are sometimes known as the 12th man when it comes to the game of soccer (or football as the rest of the world calls it). Having said that, it is rather sad to see an empty stadium that lacks the vibrancy of live fans chanting support slogans as well as dressing up for the occasion. As for the Hanwha Eagles baseball team in South Korea, it looks as though home support has dwindled to such a depressing extent that they have to enlist robots to do the supporting instead.
The Hanwha Eagles have been on the losing end of over 400 times in the past five years, and are more or less the league’s most frequent whipping boys, where they tend to rank right at the very bottom over the years. Still, die hard fans do turn up to offer whatever home support that they can, but for the rest of the fans who cannot be bothered to make their way to the stadium, they do have the high tech option of projecting their face onto a robot, in addition to gaining a certain level of the robot’s movements.
This allows such remote fans to hold up digital signs and coordinate group cheers, which is a pretty neat idea, don’t you think so? It helps to boost home support, and also allows the crowd to whip up some energy. At least as a digital remote supporter, you no longer need to make the commute to the stadium, and neither do you have to grapple with stinking toilets during the game.
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