The thing that works for baseball is how slow the game is. There's plenty of time in between pitches to make the animation simple. With sports with constant movement like a WC match would require a lot more resources. Might as well be a game engine at that point.

Watching one of these live just brings home exactly how low activity a baseball match is. You can easily miss a pitch if you're not actively watching it and keep your attention span on it. It also brings to mind how much the commentary during a game keeps the viewer engaged. Live video and a good director cutting to different cameras also helps. Radio with out the color would be insanely boring:

Here's the pitch, low and outside.Ball 1.

30 secs of silence.

Here's the pitch, fast ball down the middle. Swing and a miss. Count is now 1-1.

30 secs of silence.

For sure. And agree it wouldn't work as well for active sports like soccer or basketball.

Have some ideas on how to make this a bit more engaging for baseball, still. But ultimately it isn't really made for active viewing or to replace a live broadcast. I think of this more for the fan who wants to keep it on in the background or on the TV while they work or multitask.

Football MIGHT be slow enough that you could animate the plays Techmo Bowl style.

It would certainly be fun to attempt it. You might have to mix in some pre-defined animations for "run up the middle", that could do minimal updates like Jersey numbers.