Layer Tennis : A New Geek Sport ?

What is a sport?
Is Fishing a sport? Yes Bowling? Yes
Nascar? No Badminton? Yes
Math: No, although schools have Math Teams.
Coding: No, although we have Extreme Team Coding.

Tennis: Yes, it is a sport.
Layer Tennis, on the other hand... it's an open question.

It used to be called Photoshop Tennis, but then the Corporate Sponsor (Adobe, manufacturer of Creative Suite 4), renamed it to embrace the full power of the <breathe in> integrated suite <breathe out>.

Layer tennis is a competition of revisions. Instead of a ball or a shuttlecock, the players exchange an image file. The first player serves the image to the other, possibly along with some descriptive text. The opposing player has 15 minutes to revise the image by adding a new layer, provide rebuttal text, and return the serve. The game is umpired by the third person, our omniscient narrator who's chosen for his/her geek cred.




The audience (Season Ticket Holders) (get free tickets here) watch the competition online, and then vote for the winner after ten serves.

The next match for this season is this upcoming Friday, May 1, 2009, and they continue throughout the month of May.

Here's a series of images from a Layer Tennis Match between Steven Harrington and Chuck Anderson.

Harrington serves:


Anderson Returns:














Harrington's Last Return:


Anderson's Final Swing: