Even if it couldn't be perfectly replicated, I'm sure it could've been done in some way before - after all, it's almost 20 years since someone set up a telnet service which broadcast football World Cup games as converted ascii "video" generated live from the TV broadcasts! https://www.freshandnew.org/2006/06/watch-the-world-cup-in-a...

(And I actually remember it being surprisingly watchable, you could follow what was happening in the game even though you couldn't judge stuff like players' ball control or anything like that.)