Sports industry gears up for virtual reality revolution

Virtual Reality Is Leading Sports-Tech Wave. Virtual reality is fast becoming not only a profitable industry but also a game-changer in various fields, including sports. In a few years, it would not be much of a surprise if VR becomes totally ubiquitous—an integral part of the day-to-day life of people all around the world.

Imagine being able to attend all of your favorite team's games (home and away), take behind-the-scenes tours of the training facilities or a new stadium before it's built, watch practices, maybe even participate — all without leaving your own home.

The ways in which we are able to follow sports have evolved over the years. Radio was the connection between sports and the fans for many years, especially with baseball. The advent of television added a more powerful transmission system. Enhancements like color, HD, and large-sized flatscreens added to the appeal. The internet, cell phones, and IPads have added to the platform. The next breakthroughs are coming with virtual and augmented reality which will add to the enjoyment.

Compared to yesterday, entertainment technology and the advancements created for fans to get the inside scoop has exploded.  A few months later Google revealed Google Cardboard to start the mobile VR boom. This led to Fox Sports, ESPN, NBC, CBS, ABC, YouTube TV, Hulu, Sky Sports and many more outlets allowing users to connect on your TV, cell phone, iPad, Apple watch and now through virtual reality headsets. Data provided by statista.com has projected VR revenue for 2018 is $9.1 billion and in the year 2022 $61 billion in XR revenue. Goldman Sachs has projected that the VR market will outpace the television market in annual revenue by 2025.

The challenge for virtual reality is to create new ways in which sports can be enjoyed. Television innovated minicams, skycams, superimposed first down markers and wiring of coaches are ways to enhance football. The Los Angeles Rams utilized VR technology to allow potential season ticket buyers to see the unbuilt stadium and sidelines, and what the view would be from their potential seat location. In our effort to save the Rams back in 1994, we advocated the construction of a sports town that would have sports-related augmented and virtual reality rides which would allow the fans to interact with various sports in new and exciting ways.

To better understand how this technology will be utilized moving forward, I reached out to industry leader Travis Cloyd, co-founder of Sports Tech Media, which creates customized XR (AR, VR & MR) technologies, he shared an enlightening perspective and vantage point on the future of sports media. Travis previously created cinematic award-winning VR experiences with many legendary Hollywood actors like John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, and he is at the forefront of bringing together Hollywood and Silicon Valley. I asked him how he envisioned the future of VR in sports and his response was, "“The possibilities are endless with immersive technology like virtual and augmented reality. Through VR you can teleport yourself onto the sideline of a game or put on a haptic suit and rush outside the pocket trying to avoid a defensive lineman coming at you. In AR you can scan a team’s logo or brand sponsor and bring a custom animated message to life. These mediums are advancing every day allowing us the ability to build the ultimate fan experience. In the near future, we will purchase products in real-time as we watch live events through VR. Today, we are becoming smarter as an audience and so we’ve advanced our appetite. We strive to be closer to the action and in many cases be apart of it, but we simply can’t. This is the first time in history when sports technology gives us the edge not only in training, or observation but also in fan engagement.”

Virtual Reality can create significant benefits for training from both athlete and coach points of view. The key to modern athlete training technique is to capture and understand player’s movement and motions as much as possible. VR technology let coaches observe their team members from different angles to understand the behavior better while athletes can also observe their performance from real matches and training sessions. Another great way of using VR in sports is for indoor training. For sports such as baseball, basketball, and tennis, athletes can practice in simulations and can adjust their technique according to system feedback. Companies like StriVR and Eon Sports created solutions that can train both amateur and professional athletes. Many professional teams in NFL, NBA, and NCAA, have already adopted VR in their training. We can see that using VR is a great way to train athletes’ mind without affecting their bodies.

Here are five sports that are benefiting from VR!

American Football

At least three NFL teams (the Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, and San Francisco 49ers) and the same number of college programs (Auburn University, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Arkansas) are currently using VR technology. One of its many benefits is that it allows players to practice without stepping on an actual football field. This benefit is particularly magnified in the college ranks, which caps the players’ practice and film study hours. With VR, film study sessions can simulate actual game conditions, making such sessions even more effective.

Nascar

Virtual reality is also useful for NASCAR racers, who can strap on a VR headset and step into the world of Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Bill Elliot. In the same NBC Sports feature, Horowitz notes that advancements in VR have more or less made actual and simulated realities virtually indistinguishable. By blurring the lines that separate the real from the virtual, VR has now become “the ideal means of supplementing work on the field, on the rink, on the court, to further athletes’ skills and knowledge of the game.”

Soccer

Even soccer teams in the MLS and in leagues around the world are turning to VR to bolster their training methods. Aside from that, the soccer viewing experience is also starting to get a big boost from VR, with Dejan Gajsek writing that a Slovenian news company had covered an important soccer match between local teams FC Maribor and HSK Zrinjski Mostar. The experience allowed fans to view the match from positions that were usually inaccessible, such as behind the scenes footage of teams preparing.

Basketball

Virtual reality has also become important in basketball, and the NBA is leading the way in using VR to improve the game. The technology is, of course, being used to enhance training, as in the case of the NFL. But more than that, the sport is using VR technology in a variety of other ways. In fact, NBA executives told Sports Illustrated that they expect VR to “play a major role in growing the league’s global audience by enhancing its broadcasts, providing new fan experiences, and possibly even improving its officiating.”

Poker

Online poker players can now play their favorite poker games on VR via Casino VR Poker. It is described by 20Next as a “VR poker game that provides players a unique experience where they can play multiplayer poker in virtual reality through their VR headset.” It is currently the only VR poker game available and has already held several professional poker tournaments and cash games. Party Poker recommend VR headset as a perfect gift for poker players and referenced escapism as something “poker players both crave and need.” The article goes on to explain how VR can be an outlet for escapism by providing a fully immersive experience where you can do seemingly anything in a digital world.

Scouts

Similar to the way coaches can use VR to train athletes, they can also use VR technology to scout potential athletes. This possibility will allow coaches to bring scouting to a larger scale by observing athletes performance though game simulations or VR sports games. Shortly, we might no longer see sports scouts who attend tournaments. Instead, they will observe athletes from their office using VR headsets.

Advertising

Sport Industry recently published this article by Senior Account Director Andrew Boyers, looking at how new innovations and VR technologies, such as Facebook's Oculus Venues, are shaping the future of sports marketing.

While virtual reality (VR) has been on the ideas board of most agencies at some point in the last few years, the investment and brands that continue to develop the technology, and the ways in which marketing embraces it, suggests the VR is not going anywhere, anytime soon. In fact, as rights holders, governing bodies and broadcasters start to join the party, the signs are there that this technology may not meet the same fate of its predecessors.

Out of the myriad updates from this month's F8 Conference, one stood out as having significant implications for the future of sports marketing: Oculus Venues.

It’s fair to say virtual reality hasn’t had the easiest of rides so far. Nausea; lack of quality; unfulfilled expectation and low adoption; all claims levelled at this burgeoning technology.

However, news of Oculus’ latest offering - an app to house live event content - along with new and reduced-cost hardware suggests all that could be about to change. Launch partnerships with the NBA, NFL, NHL and WWE - not to mention Live Nation from the world of music and entertainment - also show Oculus might finally mean business.

So what about the implications for the live sport experience? First off, let’s look at the opportunities for increasing audiences.

A quick look at Manchester United’s Facebook page will show you that they have 73 million fans globally - the third biggest sports team on the platform behind Real Madrid and Barcelona. Then, consider Old Trafford’s stadium capacity of (just) 74,000 - the biggest in the Premier League. That’s 0.1% of their total Facebook fan base that they can physically fit into the stadium every week.

A platform such as Oculus Venues could give clubs like Manchester United the opportunity to engage the remaining 99.9% in a meaningful way. Those fans that were previously miles (literally) away from getting a ticket to the Theatre of Dreams; instead catching the game via an illegal stream - could now enjoy a stadium experience with just a few clicks.

In a world where traditional sport viewing figures are declining for many global sport properties (Premier League included), the proposition of extending the ‘stadium experience’ to an audience 100x bigger certainly seems like an attractive one.

However with that increased audience, comes the added pressure to offer a unique and engaging experience to achieve cut through. Recent research from Ipsosshowed the content resonated most with VR users was “truly appealing content that ‘adds value’...by feeling like a special experience that could only have been conveyed in VR and not through any other media.”

Virtual reality is still a long way from truly recreating the visceral atmosphere of a sporting stadium in full voice. But what it might currently lack in generating that real-life excitement, it can more than make up for in personalisation.

In VR, fans can be almost fully be in charge of what they see. If you’re not a fan of Clive Tyldsley and Glenn Hoddle’s commentary, switch to someone else. Missed a key moment? No problem; rewind and replay at your leisure. The opportunities are endless: different camera angles; exclusive access; half time entertainment from your favourite artist; in-game analysis - all have the potential to be personalised for your viewing pleasure.

And where do brands get to play in this new virtual reality of sports viewing? For those willing to move quickly and innovate, the potential is huge. Fans watching sport in a totally new format effectively opens the door to a whole new real estate for brands to consider.

In today’s game, you’ll see pitchside hoardings at Old Trafford for any manner of wines, tyres, coffees, mattresses, airlines or logistics - all among the global partners for the club.

However imagine the scenario: you’re watching United vs City in the latest Manchester derby. Juan Mata curls in an injury time winner from outside the box in the latest adidas Predator boots. Absolute scenes! The TV camera cuts to Mata wielding away in celebration, Casillero del Diablo hoardings glowing in the background. Rioja all round? Maybe.

But those watching in VR? They get a totally different experience. Seconds after the ball hits the net, an adidas Predator hoarding appears. So far, so impressive. But then what if that hoarding is clickable? Just one click from the sporting action and you’re onto the product page, where you can immediately purchase Mata’s boots and have your own tilt at recreating footballing magic. The consumer journey from inspirational on-pitch moment to product purchase page reduced to one click and a matter of seconds: just like that.

That’s just one example of many opportunities on the horizon. Consider the simple but impactful functionality of serving content bespoke to the audience’s native language. For clubs; the opportunity to maximise revenue with relevant brand partners in multiple locations as opposed to just one that pays through the nose for the actual stadium real estate.

With every new innovation the rules of sports marketing continue to be rewritten. The days of splashing a logo on a shirt, a stadium stand or a pitchside hoarding and hoping the fans in the stadium or watching on TV will notice, are long gone. These days, sports fans demand more: more sport, with more quality, delivered in a way that reflects their behaviours.

Is virtual reality the golden goose to help answer those challenges? Time will tell.

But in this brave new world, one thing’s for certain: fortune will favour the brand that can engage its audience credibly. If you can demonstrate your brand has the right to be at the heart of the biggest moments in sport, the potential of virtual reality is very real indeed.

There is a race occurring to see which networks, teams, stadia, and arenas can be at the forefront of this industry. Anything which enhances fan experience is here to stay.