I am seeing this issue as well. Is this actually a bug do we know?
I've been watching quite a few debates, both during the Showdown, and during practice, and in my game it seems to only happen when there is a certain amount of time left in either the Showdown or practice. Like the practice lasts 3 hours or something, the animation will work fine until there is like 40min left, and then they freeze. In the Showdown it seems to be with about 90min before the end, just before you get the notification that it will end in 1 hour. Idk if that's what other people are seeing, or if the time left has anything to do with the issue, but I figured I'd mention it.
