This past Friday, the NBA announced that highlights from the Foot Locker Three-Point Contest, the Sprite Slam Dunk, the Slam Dunk practice, and the All-Star Game will be captured in virtual reality (stay tuned for highlights to be released). The highlights will be available through Samsung’s Milk VR in the near future, giving fans a 360-degree immersive video experience. The Milk VR displays the latest content and the service offers downloads in the highest quality available (4Kx2K), and allows streaming across sports, music, action, and lifestyle.
The league also featured a special virtual reality showroom during the 16th NBA All-Star Technology Summit last week. This showroom, dubbed the NBA Virtual Backcourt, will give conference guests the chance to view game action highlights captured by Next VR during the Miami Heat versus Cleveland Cavaliers game that took place in Brazil last October.
NBA Vice President of Global Media Distribution, Jeff Marsilio, explained how it is important for the NBA to explore new ways to engage fans, with so many fans all over the world.
On virtual reality, he went on to say, “Virtual reality delivers amazing vantage points like the NBA All-Star Game from a courtside seat or Sprite Slam Dunk from the baseline. We’re very excited about the possibilities and look forward to rolling out the content to our fans.”
In the near future, NBA content will be available for free to those who have a Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition and a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. All they need to do is download the free Milk VR App.
Fans of the game always want to be as close to the game and as possible, but sometimes courtside tickets are just too expensive. This allows fans who cannot get those tickets to experience the game as if they were there. Virtual reality has long been a term easily thrown around, but with it becoming more and more prevalent, it will be interesting to see the NBA, a globally popular league, put it to use within the sports world for the general public.