VR (Like Apple's Vision Pro) Will Revolutionize Sports "Viewing"

[Nocashstyle]

"Billions" of people will not be doing this, ever.

These sweeping “no one will ever use it” statements about new technology that the biggest companies in the world are devoting billions of dollars and resources to, tend to age well, right?

 

[Nothingbutglass]

This comment will look silly in a decade or two.

Sure. get back to me then.

 

[OrangePMD]

All well and good until you break your headset trying to dodge a puck a player fired in your direction.

Or when you're actually at the game and don't see the puck coming, because you're too busy watching replays on you own personal 200 foot wide jumbotron.

 

[Soundwave]

"Billions" of people will not be doing this, ever.

I can see it, eventually the tech will get down in size to something akin to glasses and lots of people will just ditch their slab smartphone entirely, why even bother when you can have things like walking/driving directions right as you're looking up.

Some people will probably opt to just not even carry a phone period.

 

[HarrySPlinkett]

For all you VR honks… do your eyes just not feel pain?

How do you put a screen half an inch from your retinas for three hours?

 

[Cubs2024wildcard]

Uh.....VR, like it or not, is the direction tech is headed.

171 million people already gaming and that number is rising. Anybody who thinks otherwise is probably still hearing "you got mail" when they go online.

 

[Figgy44]

What do you guys think? The actual hands on for the Apple VR/AR Vision Pro headset are all over the place.

One of the demos Apple showed to people that got rave reviews was a segment where people were put courtside at an NBA game and there was another sequence where people were actually put onto the field of a baseball game (so you can't even pay for that kind of view in any other way). There was a third non-sports demo where users were able to experience Alicia Keys singing (so like a concert) except it feels like you are literally standing right beside her.

I think this could become like a third product category for sports in between going to a live event and the only other option being to watch on a flat 2D television/monitor display.

I'd honestly not have much of a problem paying a few bucks per game, especially if you had the ability to change views/seating positions on the fly and even get like "on ice" camera views.

Sure VR/AR headsets today are a bit clunky, and Apple's is especially expensive on top of that, but it's not really hard to imagine these things becoming lighter and thinner with time and cheaper too ... like a lot of tech.

IMO, it's a gimmick. It'll be interesting for the first little bit, but overall I don't believe it will receive mass adoption.

Between the 3 technologies: VR, AR or XR, I think AR and XR will receive higher adoption long term. Although the 3 are similar, they're very different. Apple is one of the first to attempt all 3 in a single unit. Most other devices out there are only 1 of the 3 and the highest end commercially available units out there perhaps attempt 2 of the 3.

VR replaces what you see and stuff you in a virtual world and attempts to intentionally isolate and disassociate you from external senses. In hockey, this might be kinda fun at first, but I don't think it would be a satisfying experience for the average fan other than a few niche fans or video coaches. IMO it would be disorienting for the average fan trying to enjoy the game. Maybe the social aspect with others in VR might be cool, but IMO the results will not be too dissimilar to those who watch VR concerts. Kinda cool, but most prefer regular streams or live. VR is a weird lukewarm option in between that doesn't do much of anything well. Like, sitting behind the net kinda suck for a bunch of viewing angles, but the excitement is in the vibe of the building and having a front row seat to a sexy play. VR offers too much and yet too little in duplicating that ambience. Being able to switch locations would be cool, but then you'd probably quickly suffer from a ton of dissatisfaction from lack of commitment to a viewing angle over time. Kinda like being on Netflix and "there's nothing to watch" sort of deal.

AR is where you see things around you in the real world, but with an overlay. IMO, something like being able to wear glasses as normal, have a screen bug in the corner and/or NHL advertising overlay in a store or arena or something. We're super far away from this, but IMO it will be more common in let's say... a decade. But IMO, it would be cool to be in an arena or watch a stream with AR glasses and then turn on specific stats or information overlay such as glowing puck/skater, skater speed, skater names, skater paths, skater/ref viewing direction etc. to enhance the focus of a live game with many moving parts. I guess in theory you could do this on a live stream as well (ie: XR) but it'd be super neat to use AR if you are at a game.

XR is where you have a screen in front of your face. You can isolate yourself from external surroundings, but you don't typically disassociate like you do VR. You know there's a screen in front of your face. This can allow you to watch the game on a "big screen" and better sound while out and about vs staring at a small phone screen. This one will probably happen sooner, but solely because it's an extension and enhancement of our current way to consume sports media.

 

[HarrySPlinkett]

This comment will look silly in a decade or two.

You mean like most comments after twenty trips around the sun?

 

[Nocashstyle]

You mean like most comments after twenty trips around the sun?

Thereby proving my point? Yes, exactly.

 

[Soundwave]

IMO, it's a gimmick. It'll be interesting for the first little bit, but overall I don't believe it will receive mass adoption.

Between the 3 technologies: VR, AR or XR, I think AR and XR will receive higher adoption long term. Although the 3 are similar, they're very different. Apple is one of the first to attempt all 3 in a single unit. Most other devices out there are only 1 of the 3 and the highest end commercially available units out there perhaps attempt 2 of the 3.

VR replaces what you see and stuff you in a virtual world and attempts to intentionally isolate and disassociate you from external senses. In hockey, this might be kinda fun at first, but I don't think it would be a satisfying experience for the average fan other than a few niche fans or video coaches. IMO it would be disorienting for the average fan trying to enjoy the game. Maybe the social aspect with others in VR might be cool, but IMO the results will not be too dissimilar to those who watch VR concerts. Kinda cool, but most prefer regular streams or live. VR is a weird lukewarm option in between that doesn't do much of anything well. Like, sitting behind the net kinda suck for a bunch of viewing angles, but the excitement is in the vibe of the building and having a front row seat to a sexy play. VR offers too much and yet too little in duplicating that ambience. Being able to switch locations would be cool, but then you'd probably quickly suffer from a ton of dissatisfaction from lack of commitment to a viewing angle over time. Kinda like being on Netflix and "there's nothing to watch" sort of deal.

AR is where you see things around you in the real world, but with an overlay. IMO, something like being able to wear glasses as normal, have a screen bug in the corner and/or NHL advertising overlay in a store or arena or something. We're super far away from this, but IMO it will be more common in let's say... a decade. But IMO, it would be cool to be in an arena or watch a stream with AR glasses and then turn on specific stats or information overlay such as glowing puck/skater, skater speed, skater names, skater paths, skater/ref viewing direction etc. to enhance the focus of a live game with many moving parts. I guess in theory you could do this on a live stream as well (ie: XR) but it'd be super neat to use AR if you are at a game.

XR is where you have a screen in front of your face. You can isolate yourself from external surroundings, but you don't typically disassociate like you do VR. You know there's a screen in front of your face. This can allow you to watch the game on a "big screen" and better sound while out and about vs staring at a small phone screen. This one will probably happen sooner, but solely because it's an extension and enhancement of our current way to consume sports media.

Apple is merging VR/AR/XR anyway, so it's going to become standardized that people get used to having the functionality of both.

What you described as being able to see the real world while also being able to hop in/out of VR experiences is what Apple Vision already does lol, it's not 10 years away, it's 4 months away. That's the whole design concept, it's VR/AR mixed without having to be cut off from your room and having floating displays is no problem. The headset even "blends" real people into your view as they approach you if you are in full VR mode (very sci-fi-ish).

 

[Kranix]

It's always been my dream to be the soccer ball that Renaldo kicks into the goal. If they can somehow install this into the soccer ball, and I can be in vr believing he's kicking my head into the goal, I'm excited.

 

[HarrySPlinkett]

Thereby proving my point? Yes, exactly.

Is your point so special that something precludes it from falling victim to this same fate?

 

[KlefDown]

No one's gonna wear headsets.

famous last words

 

[Martin Skoula]

Same way people couldn’t conceptualize an Uber or Tinder (that completely altered human behavior and made getting into a strangers car a normal part of life) when the first iPhone came out and only had the fake lighter and fake beer apps, people can’t conceptualize the meta shift with VR until it happens.

Talking about watching from a front row 360 camera is like talking about how cool the beer drinking app is. For example the infrastructure for making quality front row experiences (precise 3D tracking of the players and puck) would let you pause any game you paid for access to and instantly throw that moment into NHL26 and play it out yourself in the game.

Imo the first real market in sports for the tech is going to be on the training side and not the consumer side. Prospects at the draft are already getting tested on video occlusion training, the headset with a set of real-time NHL speed scenarios for prospects to react to is inevitable within a couple years.

 

[Soundwave]

famous last words

I do remember when the iPhone was introduced at the time, the entire trend for cell phones was smaller = better and some people claimed people would never carry around a big fat slab of a device.

Welp. And the phones today are way bigger than even that iPhone 1, lol. The bigger screen models are what people want, no one cares if it isn't the most compact or lightest.

 

[Svechhammer]

These sweeping “no one will ever use it” statements about new technology that the biggest companies in the world are devoting billions of dollars and resources to, tend to age well, right?

As we all know, investing heavily into a technology has always yielded high end results, just ask Google about their Google Goggles or any television manufacturer about their 3D technology that was all the rage a decade ago.

 

[Curufinwe]

I'd rather watch sports on a big TV. No interest in strapping something to my face.

 

[syz]

These sweeping “no one will ever use it” statements about new technology that the biggest companies in the world are devoting billions of dollars and resources to, tend to age well, right?

Killed by Google

Killed by Google is the open source list of dead Google products, services, and devices. It serves as a tribute and memorial of beloved services and products killed by Google.

killedbygoogle.com

 

[HarrySPlinkett]

famous last words

Are you going to make them?

VR, like hockey, is niche.

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean it’s not fun, it doesn’t mean there aren’t cool applications for it.

But try to understand the limited appeal inherent to strapping a screen to your face - much like strapping knives to your feet to run on solid-state water.

 

[LTIR Trickery]

I just want to know how much of this technology was specifically designed for porn

Everything is designed for porn bro, the rest of it just trickles down and gets adapted for other stuff, especially in IT

 

[Soundwave]

If they can give on-ice views, I will definitely try it out.

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Can you use it to check out the hot chicks in the crowd, or do you have to focus on the game only ?

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Could be cool , Ill try it in 30 years

 

[Soundwave]

Are you going to make them?

VR, like hockey, is niche.

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean it’s not fun, it doesn’t mean there aren’t cool applications for it.

But try to understand the limited appeal inherent to strapping a screen to your face - much like strapping knives to your feet to run on solid-state water.

VR is "niche" in the way a PC was "niche" in the 80s ... I think that is going to change especially with Apple entering the fray. Fusing all of AR/VR/virtual displays into one device, their marketing ability, simplicity of use, and the ability to quickly view your surrounds and people around you even while using it are game changers IMO.

Almost everyone I've seen that has tried it has raved about it.

 

[Unspecified]

"The game you are trying to watch with your VR goggles has been blacked out in your area"