As the experience of watching a sports event at home gets better and better, paying to go to a game in person is becoming a tough proposition for many fans. At home, there are now a wide range of connected devices and mobile streaming options, plus apps and web sites to offer up a "second-screen" and even "third-screen" experience. And now pro and college sports have yet another challenger to reckon with: virtual reality.
Thursday's NCAA men's basketball game in the Big East conference, between Georgetown and Villanova, marks the start of March Madness, and the first college basketball game to be offered live through virtual reality.
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The technology comes from NextVR, a Pasadena, Calif.-based private company founded in 2009. NextVR, in partnership with Fox Sports (FOX), will offer all seven games of this year's Big East tournament to fans for free-- if they have both a Samsung (KS) Gear VR headset, which costs $99, and a compatible Samsung smartphone.
Those are two big ifs. NextVR will eventually roll out on Google Cardboard, as well as on Oculus Rift. But for now, the fact that this technology is only on Android is a reminder of how nascent the virtual reality industry remains—new devices are coming, but the market is still in its early days. Nevertheless, the venture capital pouring into the space is a sign of the expectations: NextVR has raised $35 million in funding; Oculus VR raised $91 million before it sold to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion.
Those with the Samsung Gear headset can access the games through the Fox Sports section of the NextVR portal. On regular TV, FS1 is broadcasting the same games. If Fox Sports or FS1 sees a bump in attention and buzz thanks to the virtual-reality footage—and FS1 could sorely use a bump—expect to see more virtual reality camera crews (they are much smaller than the crews required for traditional cable television) on the court and field. NextVR cofounder DJ Roller is counting on it. This technology, he says, "is as different as radio was to television. It can put you in places where you can't even buy a ticket. For NFL, we are able to put you on the sideline, on the line of scrimmage. You can stand in the end zone and watch a touchdown... You can have an experience beyond what you'd get at the game."
Many fans might dispute that opinion. Could sitting at home on the couch with a headset on—a fundamentally solo activity—really be superior to the feel of being at a game in person, next to other humans, cheering for a team? Roller acknowledges it isn't quite—not yet. "Nothing replaces being at the game," he says, "but this is just a whole new way to experience sports."
During the Big East games, virtual-reality fans will vote with their headsets and cellphones.
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Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.
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