NBA to Broadcast Game in Virtual Reality - First in Pro Sports

RedSphyxis · October 27, 2015

NEW YORK – The NBA and Turner Sports announced today that they will provide NBA fans with access to view the first live professional sports game in virtual reality. The live stream will take place on opening night of the 2015-16 NBA season when the defending NBA Champion Golden State Warriors take on the New Orleans Pelicans on Oct. 27 at 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT. NBA and Turner Sports will work closely with NextVR, a technology company that captures and delivers live and on-demand virtual reality experiences, to deliver the live game and ring ceremony in high-definition virtual reality, further bringing the courtside experience to fans.

Well, damn another reason why I will never leave the house ever again in the near future.(not american, but filipinos are crazy for basketball so we will catch on to this very quick)

Another key term would be "courtside experience", which means two things you will never have to leave your home to enjoy the game courtside but also enjoy the broadcaster's comments and analysis of the game.

The downside would be it will probably burn a hole through your pocket.(not confirmed) But as a basis; courtside tickets can now reach up to $50,000. That's 10 monster gaming machines right there.

ofc it's still new and has constraints

For now, this unique experience is limited to fans in the United States who own a Samsung Gear VR headset. They can access the live stream via NextVR, found on the Oculus app.

so yeah only gear VR owners can experience this. Complete details to access the experience are available at www.nextvr.com/nba-tnt

so if anybody is going to try this, please do tell. and later-on share the experience with us and I'll add it here.

The NBA began experimenting with virtual reality during the 2013-14 NBA season when NextVR captured a Warriors game against the Denver Nuggets at Oracle Arena. Last season, the NBA became the first U.S. professional sports league to bring virtual reality experiences to the public by capturing and distributing highlights of the NBA All-Star Game and State Farm All-Star Saturday Night.

so they already did some experiments to test it out but we will still likely see problems.

I can definitely see this technology growing more specially since the investments keep on coming.

This will also fit-in with the current trend of "Technologies that will make you never leave the house again."

P.S. This is my first news post so please be gentle

I will try and post sports-technology news on here as much as I can seeing as there's a lack of it.

Sources:

Official NBA PR statement: http://pr.nba.com/nba-turner-sports-virtual-reality-warriors-pelicans/

CNBC Article: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/26/nba-to-broadcast-first-live-pro-sports-event-in-virtual-reality.html