a japanese baseball team replaced fans with cheerleading robots

since the COVID-19 pandemic began, robots have had an important role in helping us face these unexpected circumstances. from robot nurses to ones that disinfect rooms, we’ve seen an array of projects that may be giving us a glimpse into the future. the latest one includes two of our favorite robots — spot and pepper — cheerleading the SoftBank hawks baseball game in japan.

video by fukuoka SoftBank hawks

in japan, the nippon professional baseball league restarted in june. as in with many sports around the world, fan aren’t allowed to attend the games in person so teams have been using different strategies to stop the stadiums feeling so empty. owned by japanese tech giant SoftBank, the SoftBank hawks have employed an army of robots to sing, dance and encourage the team amidst a fanless game. in total the game saw 40 robots dressed with the team’s jersey and flag while singing the team’s song izayuke wakataka gundan.

‘this is the first time spot has performed a dance at a sports event,’ commented the company on the official press release. watch the video above to enjoy the presentation of SoftBank’s own pepper and spot of the SoftBank-owned boston dynamics.

project info

name: cheerleader robots

robots: spot and pepper

company: boston dynamics and SoftBank