With Opening Day 2016 just a few days away the San Francisco Giants announced that they will be debuting a unique Virtual Reality experience for fans during home games this season at AT&T Park. The Giants partnered with VR company, Jaunt, to help them produce their content using the company’s 360-degree video technology.
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Fans who attend home games this season will all have the chance to experience this Virtual Reality by heading to the Giants social media center located behind the centerfield bleachers, @Cafe. Once inside fans will have the opportunity to try on Samsung Gear VR headsets to experience the club’s new VR.
The VR experience will allow fans to feel like they are at a spring training game and get an intimate, field level view of batting practice. Users will also be able to turn 360-degrees and feel like they are in the infield for drills, and even get a ride along in a car with Giants pitcher Sergio Romo.
For now the only place in the stadium that fans can be a part of this VR experience is to go to the @Cafe, which is the Giants social media hub, where fans can watch all that is happening on social media regarding the team, across various platforms. Although for now this experience will be limited to the number of people that will be able to wait their turn for the small amount of VR headsets in one tiny part of the ball park, it is a step towards Virtual Reality becoming a portion of the fan experience at live games.
@vr_evangelist our camera looks more like this: pic.twitter.com/Taz62uRCuH
— Jaunt (@jauntvr) 3 February 2016
As Virtual Reality becomes an ever more ubiquitous part of the fan experience as the technology becomes more widely available the CEO of the Giants Larry Baer, sees the VR experience at the ballpark expanding, “…might include perspectives from the dugout, perspectives from behind home plate, the catcher, etcetera.”
For now the fans at AT&T Park who do get to enjoy this VR experience will be some of the first amongst Major League Baseball fans anywhere, according to Jaunt, and those who aren’t able to get their hands on it yet, might not have to wait that long.