When it comes to watching sports, nothing compares to being live at the action. Soaking in the match, one can partake in all manner of live experiences – like high-fiving the stranger next to you when things are going right, or shaking your heads in melancholic unison when the tide turns. Next would probably either be watching the game at home or at the local pub, ideally with your family and mates with a large bowl of whatever snack you can afford that weekend. And then, for most university students trapped in their rooms during term-time, you have the “I’m watching the game in my room by myself whilst crying over some microeconomics and force-feeding myself pesto pasta” scenarios – that’s honestly too painful to talk about. But what if I told you that, for a small bit of fortune, virtual reality can combine the excitement of watching the game live with the convenience of lazing in the comfort of your own house to produce the sport-watching experience of a lifetime?
As we enter 2016, sport is at the very forefront of a process that many hope will lead to the emergence of virtual reality as the premier channel for the distribution of visual content.
History was made before the beginning of the 2015-16 NBA season when the Golden State Warriors season opener against the New Orleans Pelicans became the first ever sporting event to be live streamed in virtual reality to ‘the public’, which in this case meant the few who owned a Samsung Gear VR headset. Although reports claim that the experience was actually woeful, citing blurriness and overheating of equipment as some of the main issues, it was nonetheless a significant milestone when you put it in perspective. Indeed, when the NBA announced that it was experimenting with virtual reality during the 2013-2014 season, many responded with scepticism, yet what was originally believed to be a pipe dream has actually become reality.
Concerns and criticisms of just how realistic virtual reality can really be are very much legitimate for now, but technology has a tendency to improve and there is every reason to believe that, as time goes on, we will be seeing a lot of progress with regards to quality – as NextVR co-founder D.J. Roller expressed after the Golden State match back in late October, “This is the worst VR experience you’ll ever have”. Faith in virtual reality is only boosted by the fact that VR systems from Facebook, Samsung, Sony and HTC are expected to hit the market over the next year, which at the very least is an indication that tech-specialists are expecting virtual reality to be something that people are going to enjoy over the course of the next decade or so. The situation with virtual reality is similar to that of live-streaming only a couple of years ago – I remember trying to watch a football game on my dad’s desktop all the way back in 2006 and having to put icepacks on my eyes afterwards due to the physical stress of having to focus on the Thierry Henry pixel for 90 minutes. Flash forward 10 years and live-streaming has become a common way worldwide of enjoying sports. If we were able to show the internet such patience, why can’t we do the same for virtual reality?
A much bigger objection could come from sports traditionalists, who cry that the spirit of sports is lost through technology and that a true sports fan would never be complacent enough to just watch sports from a headset. To these people, I say: boo-hoo. Firstly, no one is saying that virtual reality will replace actual reality – it’s simply providing another option for people who can’t make it to the game itself and allowing them to fully enjoy the match. Why can’t an Arsenal fan from Los Angeles or Shanghai fully submerge himself into the intensity of the game just because he or she realistically cannot make it to the Emirates? Secondly, virtual reality has the potential of not only making the match-watching experience more entertaining, but also providing a more holistic fan experience, from being at the post-match interviews or gaining an insight into the training regimen of their favourite athletes.
As Uninterrupted CEO Maverick Carter summarized, “What fans want more than anything is to be in the car with LeBron and his 13-year-old son as he gets prepared mentally for his thirteenth season.” Virtual reality can make this a legitimate possibility, and as technology continues to make the impossible look probable, sports and sports fans alike should embrace the changes that are sure to be coming
