ATP’s Tennis TV streaming service promises “ad-free tennis streams in glorious HD.” They left out an extra benefit of watching your favorite tennis players on their broadcast, a full-on ASMR option.
The service streamed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s 7-6(6), 6-3 win over Kyle Edmund at the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakesh on Wednesday. And as Giri Nathan at Deadspin noticed, the broadcast was enhanced by the sounds of whoever was doing the broadcasting getting in some solid snacking during sets.
The chewing. The crunching. The rustling of the bag. The wet mouth sounds. It was a veritable ASMR lover’s paradise.
Who knows, maybe this is the start of an entire revenue possibility that streaming services weren’t even aware of. ASMR-guided sports broadcasts in which you watch your favorite teams or athletes while someone off-screen tells you what they got from Target or rubs a feather along a microphone. (Yes, these are actual things people do in ASMR videos. Don’t ask us why we know.) Don’t knock the idea of listening to someone eat macarons while also watching SEC football until you’ve tried it.
Of course, it’s far more likely this was just a gaffe in which someone forgot to turn off their microphone while not talking. The odds are pretty good that said broadcaster was sitting in a booth somewhere else and not flown out to cover the match live in Marrakesh, so it’s understandable that they probably just wanted to do some multitasking while they could. Besides, tennis matches can be long and tedious. You gotta keep your energy up however you can.
[Deadspin]
