Softbank's baseball team in Japan replaced fans with robots in the stands as the season starts without crowds

5:24 AM

  • Japan delayed its Nippon Professional Baseball season because of the coronavirus.
  • After the state of emergency was lifted in the country, games began again on June 19.
  • Without fans in the stadium, one team put Pepper robots in the stands instead. 
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus has put most public events, including sports and concerts, on hold around the world. As many countries see declining cases and hospitalizations, public life is slowly starting to reopen. In Japan, which has had a low number of cases,  the Nippon Professional Baseball league was allowed to start its delayed season in June. 

Fans aren't allowed to watch games in person until at least July 10, so teams have been putting different symbols in the stands instead. For the SoftBank Hawks, owned by Japanese tech giant SoftBank, Pepper robot seems like the obvious choice. The robots wore team jerseys and looked like cheering fans.

Here's what it looked like. 

As the coronavirus spread in February, Japanese teams started holding closed spring training sessions.

Photo by The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images)

The season was planned for a March 20 start, which was then postponed, along with all team activities for the SoftBank Hawks.

Photo by Kyodo News via Getty Images

SoftBank, the Japanese tech giant with billions invested in companies including WeWork, Boston Dynamics, Slack, and others, bought the Hawks in 2005.

See more SoftBank-backed companies here.




See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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