Systems and methods enable sporting event spectators to do more than just observe an online or live contest with the spectators' engagement being limited to group messaging with other spectators (and possibly also the game stars/participants) during an event. The present invention provides a new level of participation for spectators. Spectators can play the game alongside their favorite athlete/star and a computer system evaluates how the participants perform compared to the athlete. The system can monitor several participants and rank their performance against performance of actual athletes to determine which participants made similar moves, took similar actions, or took action that may be deemed superior to action taken by actual athletes. From the collected data top performers can be acknowledge/awarded. The data can also be useful to identify rising stars from the pool of participants, and new athletes worthy of participants in future competitions cane identified.