Immersive Technology Is Augmenting How We Watch Sports

The Coronavirus pandemic has massively impacted sporting events, with the transition back to ‘normal’ being a slow and steady process, sports viewing needs to evolve and adapt.

British sport could face £700 million black hole as sporting events are cancelled, postponed, or held in empty stadiums to uphold social distancing measures. Even the Summer Olympics, one of the world’s most popular sporting events, has been postponed until 2021, which has had an enormous impact on athletes, coaches, and sports fans alike.

The global value of the sports industry was estimated at $489 billion in 2018 - an increase of 45% since 2011. Pre-Coronavirus, this trend was predicted to continue upwards, now, there is no certainty. Whilst many countries are beginning to ease lockdown restrictions, the transition back to ‘normal’ will be a slow process. With this in mind, traditional sports viewing needs to adapt to the new climate.

Virtual reality has been on the periphery of the sports world for years. Now, the Coronavirus pandemic is pushing technology into the mainstream as broadcasters, owners, sponsors and teams look for new ways to reach fans and produce new streams of revenue.

For example, the NBA introduced its VR/MR League Pass at the end of 2018. This allowed basketball fans from all over the globe to use a live event broadcasting platform called NextVR to tune into the hottest games and see them from all angles in VR. NextVR was recently acquired by Apple in a reported $100 million deal. This acquisition says a lot about how we’ll consume content from now on. With the 2020 NBA season cancelled due to Covid-19, the VR/MR League pass offers fans the chance to dive into the archives and re-live games in VR.  

Extreme E has announced new virtual fan engagement offerings for when the electric SUV off-road racing series debuts in 2021. Fans watching from home will have the option of purchasing virtual reality goggles from Extreme E that showcase 3D race footage. “Virtual Reality is becoming more and more prevalent in society, and it is something we are taking very seriously here at Extreme E. The aim of the virtual hospitality packages will be to provide a memorable and immersive experience for guests without needing to travel thousands of miles,” Extreme E founder and CEO Alejandro Agag said in a press release. Agag is also the founder of electric car racing circuit Formula E.

Then there’s augmented reality (AR). The tech offers countless opportunities to enhance the sports viewing experience. Advances in Web AR have made the technology more accessible to consumers and provides a very real view of the future. Imagine adverts that surround the pitch tailored to each user’s preferences, or offer the opportunity to shop for team merchandise using AR and AI - each spectator’s experience would be unique. Or, imagine you are watching from home and you could use your mixed reality headset to pick on-screen players and see information and statistics as the game continues.

Some sports organisations have already explored the technology with huge success. The Minnesota Vikings American football team worked with UK creative studio Zappar to leverage AR for their game-day programmes in 2018 and saw a 58% increase in app downloads, with users spending an average of one minute engaging with AR content.

Sports technology company OZ Sports has joined forces with visual content studio RVX Productions to launch a new product designed to enhance broadcasts of sports events played out in empty stadia during the Covid-19 pandemic. OZ Arena is targeted at football and allows spectators to be dynamically added to live broadcasts with AR. Virtual fans can personalise their experience with their own avatars, club shirts, genuine cheers from home via an app, and even appear in their preferred seat. Fans can also participate in a game through audio-only or with immersive visual participation in a live broadcast. 

Gudjon Gudjonsson, CEO of OZ Sports said in a press release: “It is our job to keep the experience still as exciting as during the non-pandemic world. We do that by learning from e-sports, bringing new exciting elements into the real-world broadcasts. The idea is to protect the integrity and experience of the game, by turning the attention away from the empty stadium, and instead replacing it with appealing surroundings to make the game more interesting, and as close to reality as possible. These are times to explore and experiment, to make sports even more appealing and to bring it closer to the latest developments in e-sports”.

When live events can become regular again, 5G will have a beneficial and necessary role as it will enable high-quality, real-time virtual, augmented, and mixed reality content to become increasingly available on portable devices. 5G will allow many more users to simultaneously access high-speed data services so that they can share, tweet, and upload to their hearts’ content during live events.

AT&T reinvented the live sports experience in late 2019, partnering with the Dallas Cowboys to bring fans closer to the action using 5G devices from Samsung and NETGEAR. Throughout the NFL season, four 5G activations were offered including life-size digital versions of star players and live stats overlaid onto the field, viewed only through a Samsung Galaxy 10 5G. 

Mo Katibeh, chief marketing officer at AT&T Business said: “We’re combining the physical and digital worlds to create a world-class experience for fans, and sports provide a perfect example of how our business-first 5G strategy will bring value to consumers. We’re paving the way for how immersive fan experiences could be built in venues across the country as our 5G network continues to grow.”

Perhaps one of the most well-known sports events in the world, the Super Bowl, embraced 5G technology at this year’s event - dubbed ‘The First 5G Super Bowl’. The stadium and much of the city around it, including the airport and downtown Miami, were fitted with Verizon 5G technology with the hopes of boosting fan engagement and excitement about connecting to 5G. Fans with 5G enabled phones were able to escape the congested 4G network and could enjoy up to 1GB/s download speeds, as well as access to exclusive content through the NFL’s fan engagement app, OnePass.

NFL’s chief revenue officer Renie Anderson told CNN Business: “Our goal is that as we think about the fan experience in the stadium, we're always thinking about: How are we enhancing their experience? Our fans have an extreme appetite for all things NFL - content about the game and stats and what guys are wearing and what they do with their families and where they vacation. We want to make sure that content is available anywhere and anytime."

Despite the global pandemic, now is the time to reflect and focus on the future of sports and the huge amount of innovation that is emerging that can create richer and more immersive experiences. 

REWIND is working with a consortium, as part of the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund’s audience of the future programme, to create a new platform to transform how remote audiences experience e-sports. Read about it here.