Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The worlds of sports and showbiz collide! Featuring in-depth chats with top athletes, entertainers, and industry insiders - all with a Las Vegas twist.
Speaker 1 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Music 0:22
Go Nothing can stop me. I'm all the way up.
I'm all the way up. Nothing can stop me, I'm all the way up.
Alexis Levi 0:42
Whoo. All. The way up, and I am here. Alexis, Levi with sports and stars. I'm so excited today, you know, I promise you every every time I do a show that I bring you somebody that you don't know. You don't know what's happening in your own city, you don't know what's happening around the world. And today, we actually are really around the world. My guest is from Austria, Vienna, Austria. Welcome Greg. This is Greg Gettinger from E Sports, e tennis. How you doing today?
Greg Gettinger 1:09
So nice having you. It's
Alexis Levi 1:11
nice having you too. I'm so excited. You know, I just happen to be a little bit more personal with this guest. I am working with him on the what is it? World E Sports Tennis Championship, and I'm so excited about that, so we're going to talk a little bit about that today. I also want to start from the beginning, because a lot of people don't even know what E tennis is, so let's roll it back a little bit, Greg, and I'm just going to ask you, kind of how you got started in it, and then we're going to roll them on to now and talk about the World Championship. Okay, so tell me how you got started in E Sports, e tennis.
Greg Gettinger 1:48
Yeah, that was interesting because it was a research project with the Technical University in Vien, Austria. And the idea was, can you improve your tennis technique using virtual reality? And out of that we developed, you know, the authentic ball physics and the and the real the real tennis court into the virtual environment. And that's how the art tennis developed. That's
Alexis Levi 2:15
amazing. Now, you know, you, you forced me to try it the last time we were together, and it was actually fun. I was telling people, I said, Man, I had a workout. Tell them how they would get a chance to do e tennis, and also tell them about your platform and things like that.
Greg Gettinger 2:35
Yes. Well, first of all, you need to have a headset. You need to have the one of the meta quest headsets, either the quest two, the quest three or the Pro and once you have the headset, all you need is in a good Wi Fi connection. And all you do is you download the tennis eSports app and you put on your headset, and you are on a virtual court. And the virtual court is just like the real court. There's no difference, except that you have a virtual ball and not, if not, a real physical ball. And that, that's, that's how it works. So you can do training, you can do exercises, you can do matches, you can turn you can do tournaments, and yes, and that's, that's how we get to the world energy sports championships. Okay?
Alexis Levi 3:20
Now, you said that anybody could do this, so there's not an age range everybody can get on just, they just need the headset, the VR and then they can start playing tennis, right?
Greg Gettinger 3:34
Anybody, there's, there's no, no gender limitation, no age limitation, if you have to, if you're disabled and a wheelchair, you can play. Everyone is included here. Well, I
Alexis Levi 3:47
felt like, if I could play, anybody could play, for sure, and it was a lot of fun. Now, you and I met talking about, actually, you've blown this thing up, and you are your team in Austria and all over the world. Are the leaders in this piece right now, right?
Greg Gettinger 4:05
Yes, well, it's a new market. You know, it's, it's, it's just a few years old. The art tennis just started a few years ago, and we launched the app just 18 months ago. And yeah, in the meantime, we have more than 200,000 players on the platform. So it just, it's growing like hell,
Alexis Levi 4:23
yeah. Well, we're excited because, you know, everybody, we are bringing the world championship to Las Vegas. And, you know, like, Las Vegas doesn't have enough sports stuff right now, right? But it's the place to be. And so, you know, we're putting it all together. We just affirmed the space, which is an awesome place here, and we'll be putting more information out about this as we get it all together. But I also want to ask you, Greg, now, you are a technology you consider yourself a technology person more than a eSports e tennis person before you did all the championships and everything like that. And. So, you know, you and your team are technology people. You had the brain to do this, and it's exciting. You also, from my knowledge, started putting together tournaments. Talk a little bit about those tournaments,
Greg Gettinger 5:13
yes. So what happened was that, you know, out of training, people said we want to match. And then we made, you know, we developed a multiplayer option that people can play against each other. And the great thing is that you don't have to be at the same location. So people from New York can play against somebody sitting in Paris or in Sao Paulo or Moscow, or even Australia. You can play anyone anywhere in the world. And out of that, we started at the our tennis eSports tour with some hybrid events where we had the qualifications, the playoffs played globally virtual, and the finals physical at some event. And that's what's going to happen at the World tennis esport championships in Las Vegas too. So we're going to invite the 16 best players all over the world to Vegas on September 10, and they will play the World Championships, then physically at the space in Vegas. We're
Alexis Levi 6:14
so excited about this. You know, it took a minute for us to kind of get it into where we needed it to be for Las Vegas. But now we are going to blow it up people. It is going to be so great. There's going to be food and festivities and reporters and the actual athletes, and we're going to do some fun stuff with them, and you'll get a chance to see them. So we definitely going to keep you posted on it. You know, it's it's interesting how the world of Esports has taken over, isn't it?
Greg Gettinger 6:43
Yeah, it's amazing. And especially VR, you know, the virtual sports, they are just, you know, growing, growing so rapidly. And it's just because it's so convenient, you know, you just need to put your headset on anywhere in your living room and push the button and and there you go. You're on the virtual court, but you don't have to go and buy a place, or rent, rent a coach, or, you know, you know, you don't even have to pick up balls anymore. I
Alexis Levi 7:09
was gonna ask you, do you have to? Do you have to get a racket?
Greg Gettinger 7:14
You don't have to get a racket. You have controllers with the with the headset, but we do have adapters. We do have adapters where you put the controller on the adapter and you have the same weight feeling balanced like a real tennis racket. So some, some tennis players, you know, prefer to have a, know, the VR handle, to have the real feeling. But most of the people just play with the controls. Actually,
Alexis Levi 7:41
that is so good. Now I am looking forward to it. Now you've got from now until September 10, you have some other events going on around the world, and I want to talk a little bit about that, because I want our audience to know how extensive This is and how it's a worldwide thing, as opposed to an Austria thing or a Vegas thing. It's people from all around the world that are going to be watching that night.
Greg Gettinger 8:07
Yes, yes. So, so the 16 players that they're really coming from all over the world, out of the 16, eight come up come out of the tennis eSports tour. So those are three virtual tournaments, you know, globally over the world, and the top eight are selected for the World Championships. But there's also, there are also eight national leagues out there, one in Austria, one in Switzerland, one in Germany, one in UK, one in Ireland, one in India, one in the US, and one in Canada, and each one of them are going to have the national championships, and the winner will get and win a ticket to Las Vegas.
Alexis Levi 8:50
Las Vegas, oh, that's so much fun. I'm excited about it, you know. And I you know, I already know, but I want to make sure that my audience, who are especially lovers of eSports. Anything you know, they know how to join what you're currently doing, you know, I had a guy that asked me the other day, said, I know how to play that. I'm really good at it, you know, and I want to join so that I can compete. So tell them how they can do that. I know that the the other ones have been there for a while, and they're definitely going for the top rankings. But you know, hey, let's start some new people coming in and getting acquainted with eSports e tennis. How do they do that?
Greg Gettinger 9:32
Actually, it's very, very easy. All you have to do is, you have to download the tennis eSports app and just, you know, play the play the tournament. So there is a, there's a button where you just, you know, push and say, okay, playing tournaments, and there you go. You play, you know, anyone in the world, anytime you want. That's the tennis eSports tour. But there's also second option to to join, if you're in the US, the. There's the US National League. And for that, I I recommend to you to go to discord and you see all the info and and the news how the National League is going. That's the second way to qualify for the World Championships. Well,
Alexis Levi 10:19
you know, I like it, because one of the things that I had not seen very much of until you connected me over, you know, at the WhatsApp, you know, it's really a world thing, because I'm seeing people chime in from all different places around the world. They're enjoying themselves, they're laughing, they're communicating, they're, you know, congratulating each other and competing so well with each other. And did you set that up? I mean, you know, I'm wondering how, in my mind, I sit here and I think, how did he get 200,000 people to come together? And how long did that take you?
Greg Gettinger 10:58
Well, as I said, you know, we launched 18 months ago, and we launched with 300 people last year. We had 35,000 and just within one year, you know, we jumped from 35,000 to right now, we have 210,000 actually, that's what the great thing, the great fun is, actually that you you enter a social tennis club. So you just walk in to a tennis club as it would be a physical tennis club, and you see other people, and you can check with them. You can play on a tennis wall. You can you can sit down, have a drink with them all virtually, and go go on a double court and just play a casual double with them. Or, you know, they can challenge you and say they want to play a match with you. So it's like a physical tennis club. The only difference is the people are around the world virtually, and they can come in there anytime, from from anywhere.
Alexis Levi 11:55
Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny, because I think I told you this, my son was a basketball player, uh, pro, for a while over other seat, you know, overseas. And, you know, I remember sitting in his, you know, condo or his house and watching him play video games, and there was 10 other basketball players playing right with him. And I think it's kind of cool for the social thing this, you know, some people don't want to be in amongst a whole lot of people, but they want to do something fun, and this allows them to do that and also kind of be social at the same time.
Greg Gettinger 12:28
Yes, but you know what I really like on tennis eSports is that we are getting a lot of gamers who usually sit in front of the computers and push buttons into aliens. Now with us. You cannot sit down just in front of your computer. You have to really stand up and play tennis as if you would play on the real court. You have to do all the right movements. And the physics is so accurate that playing the game, you really learn and improve your tennis techniques. So it has two side effects. The one is your physical active and the second thing, you learn a real sport, which you can use on the real court. You learn the real moves. Yes,
Alexis Levi 13:11
yes. Now the funny thing you told us when we first started out that, you know, different people started using this to train different coaches and different you know, tennis, you know, I would call them coaches tennis, you know, champions that work with people you know, are looking at this as a way to train and to better their athletes.
Greg Gettinger 13:38
Yeah, so that's how we started. Actually, it's a research project to improve your tennis techniques. And the great thing on exercising no tennis in VR, is that every stroke you do, every every move you do, is is captured in a 360 degree angle, and it gives you accurate data. So every, every, every time I hit the ball, I can see what velocity I have, what spin I have, what how's my trajectory, you know, how do I get the ball and have all the stats of that so I can really see how it can improve, and it gives me accurate steps to improve my my technique, you Know, strike by strike, and
Alexis Levi 14:20
that's good, because now it's two fold. It's a game, you know, something you can do just for fun, but also for those tennis players out there. And we have a lot of tennis players here in Nevada or in Las Vegas, right? And they could use that. If they're home at night, they don't want to be on the court, you know, all night, they can be at home working out and making sure that they're just getting better. And I think that's really cool. I really commend your staff and you for coming up with this, you know, I kind of always wonder, you know, I know a little bit about eSports, but I kind of always wonder, you know, where the thoughts come from, and how did they get to this point. But now, having met you and having joined for us. And we're doing some business together. I'm like, Okay, I understand now how this, you know, this came over into the gaming area, but it also is a personal thing. And so, you know, for those of you that are out there that love tennis and you want to have a nice game, but be at home, this is really cool. I mean, I remember, actually, you had me in the middle of Mandalay Bay, actually swinging and doing things. People were walking by looking and wondering, What the heck is this woman doing? But it was fun. The only thing I would say for me, who's very clumsy, is I had to watch and make sure that I wasn't swinging and hitting somebody, or swinging and or, you know, going forward and not know what was in front of me, right? So I know that that's something that's very important too. So from axis,
Greg Gettinger 15:47
I tell you a little secret, if you promise to tell to anyone else.
Alexis Levi 15:52
Oh, okay, I think I have some people listening.
Greg Gettinger 15:57
No, I've been in Vegas a few times already, and the reason is actually that we have some famous help on the app on the one side, one of our advisors is Johnny lane. That's a junior trainer of Andre Agassi, and Andre himself. He He played the app a few times, and he gave us great help and a great advice how to to improve it and how to develop it year by year. So, so that's why there is some history behind Las Vegas, and that's also one of the reasons we have to do the world is for championships in Vegas, not only because Vegas is such a great city, in a sports city, but also because of that history.
Alexis Levi 16:38
Yeah. Well, you know, the exciting thing about it is, and we haven't talked about this, but for those people around the world, because you can imagine, if you have family members and people coming to this and you can't come, you know, you can't come from that country, you still want to watch it. So we're going to be streaming. We're going to be doing all kinds of fun stuff leading up to the day, and also on that day, so people will be able to see it, and we'll make a lot of noise around here and let everybody know that what's going on. You know, I'm here at UNLV, and you know, you got a lot of students here, so we definitely want to let them know and give them a couple of tickets to get there and actually see something like this in person. And so I'm excited about that. Now, what's leading up to the 10th. So where do you go from here? Here we are today. We just signed everything, and you're getting ready now for what a tournament, or Yes.
Greg Gettinger 17:29
So, so the the first tournaments are going to start end of February. There will be three virtual tournaments for the qualification, okay? And, and, and the big, the big highlight, will be in tune with the last tournament. And by then we have to, we have to have the 16 players lined up, because they need some, some time to to prepare for the travel and for the World Championships. So that's the one side above the side, we have all the national elites and the championships up and running. And and country by country, there will be National Championships where they where they make the winner, where the winner. So. So for the US, they're going to be three events in the US. And if you go on Discord, anyone who's interested, just going on Discord to our Tennessee esport channel, and you find all the information about that, yes,
Alexis Levi 18:29
yes. Well, that sounds exciting. That really does sound exciting. And I'm looking so forward to this event. I also wanted to let people know that, obviously you've been communicating with other countries that haven't been in and so where do you see the world e Tennis Championship going from here?
Greg Gettinger 18:53
Well, hopefully we can do it year by year, and we can stay in Vegas.
Alexis Levi 18:57
We'd love to have it.
Greg Gettinger 19:01
I would love to have it year by year in Vegas. So if we have a nice welcome and a lot of people cheering up, we're gonna stay in Vegas.
Alexis Levi 19:12
Okay, well, that sounds amazing to me, and I just am so glad that you joined me here today, and I'm excited that we are, you know, in cahoots with each other, you know, on this because I think, you know, we have an Esports facility here, over at the Luxor. And then there's another one that I believe has is in town as well, but I haven't seen as much as I would like to see, so this will bring a little extra spin to it, and it'll probably give us more attraction. I know that you're talking to different people that are bringing other forms of eSports stuff here to Las Vegas. So we're just ready, we're ready to bring on anything. You know, that's kind of how we had the one sport, the second sport, the third sport. And now it's like, Okay, bring it all, you know, bring it all. And we're excited, because it's an international. Thing, you know, we get some international things here, you know, we get soccer, and we get, you know, different tournaments. And, of course, you know, the big sports entities come here and do a lot, but this will be fun, because this will be the first time that we have had this, and, like you say, in hopes that we can keep it for a couple of years.
Greg Gettinger 20:19
Yes, and I can tell you that no players around the world, if they hear the World Championships are in Vegas, they love it. Everyone loves to come to Vegas. It's it's the city to to go. So
Alexis Levi 20:30
yeah, and I live here. I love it. People try to get me out all the time. They go. When you coming back to California, when you're doing this, when you're doing that, I'm saying, No, I'm here to stay. You know, Vegas has been very good to me. I remember having a meeting with Oscar Goodman years ago, and he said, let's see if you're going to be here. When I had the basketball team, let's see if you're going to be here, you know, in a couple of years, you know. And I told them, I said, I love it. Here I'm staying. And here I am. It's 20, almost 20 years. And so I love Vega, yeah. Well, I just want to thank you so much for showing up today. I know it's a little late over there, time to go to sleepy, but I really appreciate you, you know, hopping on the phone with us talking about this event that we're going to bring here, and I'm going to work really hard to see what I can do to get some students involved, and, you know, high school students and college students involved, because I think it's a great thing for them to see and be involved in. And I just want to thank
Greg Gettinger 21:31
you. You're doing a wonderful job. Thank you very much, and thank you for having me. Thank
Alexis Levi 21:35
you, and I'll talk to you soon. Okay, talk to you soon. Bye, Bye. All right. Bye, bye. Thank you.