SBJ Power Up: Tennis Social AI opens pre-order for simulator

This week's SBJ Tech newsletter features an interview with nVenue CEO Kelly Pracht, who gives great insight into how the company brought its tech to NASCAR. She gets into NASCAR's uniqueness compared to other sports and the challenges that brings to nVenue's microbetting markets. -- Mike Boylan

In today's edition of Power Up:

V1 Tennis Simulator up for pre-order
Touring Cosm's Dallas facility
Bally Sports Plus app crashes

Tennis Social AI makes V1 Tennis Simulator available for pre-order

By Joe Lemire

The setup for Tennis Social includes a large simulator screen, like indoor golf, but with a cutout for a machine to fire tennis balls at varying speeds Tennis Social AI

Tennis Social AI is making its V1 Tennis Simulator available for pre-orders, with a product it hopes can reach the full spectrum of players, from novice seeking a social experience to pro desiring more purposeful practice. Installations are expected to begin in early 2025.

The business model has evolved from a full-scale sportainment venuefeaturing a simulator at the core of its experience to a pure technology play.

“We decided that we didn't really have the experience to properly do the real estate and food and beverage side,” said Tennis Social AI CEO and co-founder Tyler Kelly. “We had much more experience on the technology and tennis side, and we moved from this ‘TopGolf for tennis’ model to actually more of a ‘TrackMan for tennis’ model.”

The setup for Tennis Social includes a large simulator screen, like indoor golf, but with a cutout for a machine to fire tennis balls at varying speeds, spins and side-to-sides. Optical tracking cameras follow the ball’s path, to provide feedback on where a shot hits the screen — such as giving points for hitting a gamified target. (Full swing analysis is possible in the future.) The AI software will generate social games that also help players improve their skills.

Kelly said it was important for players to use a real racquet and have that tangible feeling of hitting the ball, saying VR environments might be helpful for improving reaction time but not in making proper contact. He said the Tennis Social setup in essence replicates what many tennis players already do in practice, whether hitting balls fed by a coach or a ball machine on the other side of the court.

“It's the exact same cadence as that. We've just elevated that experience through the ball tracking, computer vision and game animation to make it an immersive experience and to make it a dynamic experience that is fun and social,” Kelly said, adding: “It's a way to bring young people in. It's a way to bring large groups together, something that tennis has always struggled with.”

Tennis Social is hoping to build the “bowling alley version of tennis” where a large group of varying abilities “independently enjoys tennis while also socially being together,” he said. “That, I think, is the magic of what we’ve built.”

The first prototype was built in Orlando, where Tennis Social’s co-founder and CTO, Phil Bias, is based. Bias is also co-owner of nearby Steamroller Studios, which does animations for video games and amusement parks and has built the visualizations for Tennis Social. The other two co-founders are CFO Steven McClendon and Chanmeet Narang, who works at a New York investment fund but is not full-time at Tennis Social. So far the company has been funded by friends and family and a few angel investors, with plans for a larger, institutional round next year. Tennis influencer Rachel Stuhlmann is supporting the project as an ambassador.

Kelly played professional tennis for six years, competing on the ATP Tour and training with then-world No. 1 Justine Henin. After that, he focused on coaching tennis and working in tech startups. When his wife’s medical residency necessitated a move to New York City, he found it challenging to find court time and opponents of similar skill. When he saw people carrying golf bags in wintertime, he learned more about the accessibility of indoor golf and sought to replicate it for his chosen sport.

“Golf and tennis have always coexisted together. The idea started to spawn, why couldn't you do this for tennis?” Kelly said. “Golf has been doing this at a high level for a while now, and we get to look at that industry and see where it's going and make decisions based on some of the innovations happening there.”

SBJ tours Cosm's Dallas facility during AXS DRIVE

SBJ got an inside look at Cosm's new Dallas facility during the AXS DRIVE event in Frisco this week.

Bally Sports app crashes across several markets

The Bally Sports Plus app "went down for many customers" in multiple markets last night -- including in Michigan, where fans weren't able to watch the Tigers play "arguably their most-anticipated game in nearly a decade" as they attempt to chase down the final AL wild card spot. The app went down around 8pm ET, about 20 minutes following first pitch, and service was restored "about an hour" later. Around 8:40pm, Bally Sports said on X that service had been restored "across all regions" (DETROIT NEWS, 9/17).

Complaints about app issues came "from users in a lot of different Diamond markets," who all said that they "could not get the app to work." It was "a notable outage impacting fans in multiple markets" during "an important September Tuesday of MLB action" (AWFUL ANNOUNCING, 9/17).