Even if you cannot see with your eyes, you can now fully feel the stadium. The "audible stadium" created by the K League has been recognized on the world stage.
The artificial intelligence voice commentary service for visually impaired people, "Alive Cast," developed jointly by the K League Assist Foundation and Hana Financial Group, won the silver award in the entertainment & design institutional sector at the 2026 Edison Awards.
The Edison Awards are an international awards ceremony given to innovative cases that turned technologies and ideas that did not exist into reality. This year's ceremony was held on May 15–16 in Fort Myers, Florida.
"Alive Cast" is a service designed to allow visually impaired people to experience soccer in real time inside the stadium. When cameras installed in the stadium track the movements of players and the ball, artificial intelligence analyzes the situation and immediately explains it by voice. It is not just at the level of announcing the score or whether a shot was taken. It conveys, like a human voice, which player is running in which direction, where the ball is moving, and how the flow of the game is changing.
AI specialist company H Intelligence participated in the technology development.
Most importantly, the meaningful point is that this is the first domestic case of applying this form of AI real-time voice commentary in an actual sports stadium. It was designed so that visually impaired spectators at the stadium could hear it immediately on site, not through TV broadcasts or a separate app. Even without seeing, it allows people to share the stadium's tension, cheers and decisive moments.
This service was first trialed in November last year at the K League 1 round 35 match between Daejeon Hana Citizen and FC Seoul held at Daejeon World Cup Stadium. At that time, visually impaired soccer fans Han Jong-min, a boy, and his twin brother Han Jong-seo, a boy, visited the stadium and experienced the service firsthand.
Reactions at the venue were also strong. Thanks to the voice that immediately explained the situation before their eyes, evaluations followed that they were able to feel the flow of the game and player movements much more vividly than before.
This award is not simply because the technology was excellent. The K League was highly praised for actually realizing the value that "everyone should be able to enjoy soccer." It is particularly symbolic that the achievement was recognized on the international stage in April, the month for people with disabilities.
Since 2020, K League Assist and Hana Financial Group have carried out the "Everyone's stadium" campaign and have continued various projects to create an environment where people with and without disabilities can enjoy soccer together. Alive Cast is also an extension of that effort.
The service will be officially operated at Daejeon World Cup Stadium from the end of May. From July, it is planned to expand to all matches held not only at Daejeon World Cup Stadium but also at Seoul World Cup Stadium and Suwon World Cup Stadium.
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