There’s no better time to show off your school pride than during March Madness. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament features 68 teams fighting for a national championship. And for fans of each and every one of those teams, Thyng has an augmented reality activation specifically for you.
Here’s what you need to know:
– The downloadable Thyng 4.2 app (iOS) uses ARKit technology to build a 3D, augmented reality world on your smartphone, allowing fans to walk around and interact with objects relevant to his or her team, like a mascot or logo. The app supports both surface and target-based augmented reality.
– As of March 12, the Thyng app features a March Madness folder with 75+ logos/mascot animations. The company plans to release short video vignettes leading up to the action, showing users creative ways of using the objects.
– Fans can submit their own logos to ‘MyThyngs’ in hopes that the Thyng team will incorporate them into the app.
– Fans can share creations socially. A new update to the app allows them to record and send video out via various social channels.
SportTechie Takeaway:
Sports organizations have consistently viewed augmented reality as a method of improving fan engagement and experience. Most recently, for example, Al Jazeera used it to help explain various Winter Olympic events.
Outside of serving as a teaching tool, augmented reality applications have been used as a light-hearted entertainment tool for teams and leagues. Virtex Arena unleashed a new app prior to this year’s Super Bowl that let fans participate in a ‘kicking’ game where they flicked footballs at virtual receivers circling the field.
Thyng’s AR-application, like those discussed above, is an example of a simple, easy-to-execute method of expanding the fan experience, one that teams and leagues are likely to continue to support. At the recent MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, a Boston Celtics co-owner expressed his desire to find further applications for augmented reality within the team’s official app.