Restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic have prevented teams in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) from welcoming spectators into ballparks so far this season.
To help overcome the sterile atmosphere in stadiums devoid of fans, one NPB team has come up with a novel way to inject some artificial atmosphere into the ballpark.
Dancing robots.
Footage has surfaced on social media showcasing how during a recent game against the Rakuten Eagles, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks employed 20 dancing robots to liven things up.
The two kinds of robots, SoftBank’s humanoid robot ‘Pepper’ and others on four legs, engaged in a choreographed dance to the team’s fight song.
Suffice to say, it was a sight to behold.
Let’s hope the Hawks’ interesting efforts ultimately result in a better outcome than what happened with a disastrously wrongheaded effort by a soccer team in Korea to add some life into the stadium. Given how poorly that situation played out, that should go without saying, though.
For what it’s worth, with their hat-wearing, flag-waving robot fans “cheering” them on, the Hawks pulled out a 4-3 victory on Tuesday night.
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