A few years ago, I wrote a column titled, “How Much are the VR Broadcasting Rights Worth for NFL Football?” I described how in the near future we would safely attach several cameras around players’ football helmets, and through virtual reality (VR), viewers could immerse themselves into the action those players experience in conjunction with visual perspectives from around the stadium. With some haptic feedback suits, they would also be able to “feel” the action on the field.

In fact, NFL teams are now using helmet cams in practices and warmups but not during a regular season game. The NFL also occasionally arranges for the camera hat vantage point of officiating team members – especially the back and field judges who face the action from the defensive side of the ball and the umpire who watches the play from the quarterback’s perspective.

However, it’s just a matter of time until we have player helmet-cams being used in regular and post-season NFL game broadcasts. Over the last few decades, the NFL game viewing experience has steadily improved with instant replay, color programming, mics spread across the stadium, multiple camera views, and real-time stats. Soon you will be able to add many other user-enhancing VR features to this list.

The Limits of VR

Much of the fun of watching football games, or other sporting events, concerts, etc. – whether on television or in person – is the social aspect of the experience.

Traditional VR technology tends to isolate the viewer from people in the rest of the viewing location.

Sure, viewers and their friends can all wear the same devices and possibly watch the action from the same perspectives. They can talk to each other out of the sides of their mouth as they view the Hail Mary pass or game-saving tackle (“Oh man, did you SEE that!), but everyone remains locked into their own view and their own micro experiences.

Yes, these VR NFL fans are still in the real world, and yes, they’re looking at vastly new perspectives of the real world.

Another World Altogether

In contrast, how about groups of friends meeting at the stadium – in the metaverse – where they’re able to not only watch the game but engage with each other, exchange high-fives and razz the fans of the opposing team sitting behind them?

This kind of emerging experience takes VR to a new level. There’s a big difference between interacting in a single-viewer experience (traditional VR) and viewing it virtually as a group in the metaverse – with all the benefits of the point-of-view technology that allows for a much more immersive viewing experience of the event itself.

Basketball First

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is already working with the NBA to broadcast NBA games for fans in the metaverse. Based on reported experiences of some users, the technology is in its infancy, but it demonstrates the promise of creating the kind of real-time, personalized, interpersonal experience of being at a game in the best possible seats and among the best possible company.

Future Implications

As this technology advances and finds its way into the NFL experience, we may see a decline in in-person attendance at average in-season games. Team owners who plan ahead, though, won’t be financially affected as they find unusual new ways to monetize the meta-viewing experience.

Competitive teams will still sell lots of actual, in-person $300+ tickets to die-hard fans, along with beers, nachos, and jerseys. But tens of thousands more fans will pay $50 for a meta-virtual second deck seat and proportionately more for seats closer to the field. At halftime, they might buy an official NFL-licensed NFT team jersey. These viewers may see ads during some of the breaks in the action, except for those viewers who bought premium skybox tickets or hold season tickets.

New Angles

And when it comes to camera angles, there will be very few limits. Every player, coach, and official will have a helmet/hat cam with an audio microphone, capturing pretty much everything except play-calling in the huddle. Technology will be available to immediately scrub the audio to preserve G-ratings upon request.

We’ll need to get used to player helmet camera views. A few years back when the World Football League was experimenting with helmet cams, after a particularly hard hit, a quarterback’s helmet was knocked off his head, falling to the ground, creating the visual impression for many that the player had been decapitated!

Beyond helmets, though, cameras will also be at both points of the football. Quarterbacks who don’t throw spirals could make this a pretty troubling viewpoint, although gyroscope technology will limit that effect somewhat.

Drones have been used by NFL teams in many ways – except for recording game action. Among the future metaverse football viewing options will be quiet drone cams programmed to follow plays from either the offensive or defensive perspective, key players, or even sideline activity.

“In-Person” vs Viewing Events

Metaverse inhabitants/avatars will have the option of experiencing an NFL game at the metaverse stadium or remotely at their meta-home or in another meta-viewing venue. Fans at the virtual stadium will likely key in on just a few game views to keep their experience more manageable and realistic.

Metaverse viewing parties will be a different story, though, as the presentation mixes these views in accordance with the wishes of the attendees. They’ll be able to watch a play live from the quarterback’s perspective and then the replay from the football cam as the ball soars to the receiver downfield and then from the back judge’s view as they call pass interference. Hosts will hire producers to adeptly switch back and forth among these views as details of the plays evolve both during and after the play.

We’ll see retired players hosting viewing parties in the metaverse, offering running commentary and answering questions. Yes, quite a bit like ESPN’s breakthrough Monday Night Football ManningCast!

Groups will rent out venues in the metaverse to watch the big game as a for-profit venture, to entertain clients, or raise funds for charity.

Adapting the Game to the Metaverse

To prevent all of the unique views and vantage points in a game from being wasted on metaverse fans, and much to the chagrin of NFL purists, the NFL will likely increase the time between plays from 40 to 60 seconds to allow for multiple vantage point replays. Official overseers “in New York” will also take advantage of these perspectives.

Other rule changes and practices will invariably be adopted to optimize the experience for metaverse viewers.

The Expanding Sports Metaverse

This combination of metaverse in-person/avatar viewing and the more expansive metaverse viewing party experiences can and will be replicated in most other sports. Faster-paced, less predictable sports will probably make the best use of it.

But even aficionados of the more gentile, predictable sports like horse racing and golf will want to be there in-person or in-avatar to see first-hand the event’s nuances, like saddling up and club selection as the action unfolds.

1994 was the first year that television broadcast rights for NFL football exceeded $1 billion. While currently earning between $5-$6 billion per year, the NFL currently has its eyes set on a much larger number in the years ahead, upwards of $25 billion.

Broadcast rights include an exclusive piece of content through which a broadcast company, in this case, CBS, Fox, NBC, and ESPN, have the right to air all the events leading up to the game, the game itself, and any post-game events significant enough to attract an audience.

The television rights to broadcast NFL games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any American sport.

The value of these rights is based on a broadcaster’s ability to sell ads and make a profit. In most cases, the profit potential has to be several multiples of what they cost. So if the rights to an event cost $10 million and the cost of producing the broadcast with producers, hosts, commentators, reporters, camera crews, engineers, and studio analysts amounts to another $10 million, the television station may need to see potential ad sales of over $100 million to make it all worthwhile.

Over time television companies have become very sophisticated in their ability to predict audience size and generate ad sales.

As a result, professional sports have grown into a massive industry with player contracts, licensing agreements, and stadium deals all in the crosshairs, as owner groups have been quick to mine every possible revenue stream to their advantage.

That’s why the latest innovations in virtual reality are particularly interesting because they open the doors to entirely new revenue streams that currently don’t exist.

The key difference is that broadcasting rights for VR will have far less to do with ad sales and far more to do with the overall value of the experience.

The Ultimate Form of Story Telling

Athletic competition is only interesting if athletes and teams are relatively evenly paired, and if either team has the potential to win or lose their next competition.

Teams that always win tend to be far less interesting over time, and those with constant losing streaks are the least interesting of all.

In this context, sporting competitions have become the ultimate form of storytelling. Each contest is a test of the human spirit, with good guys and bad guys pairing off, amidst the great drama, as people test their limits to overcome adversity, in their struggle to achieve victory. And all of this is unfolding in real-time, veiled in the mystery of an unknown outcome.

For this reason, sports have become critical of fresh content in a world where relevance is gauged by timeliness and hyper-awareness is all part of the group experience.

The value of these broadcasts degrades exponentially faster than virtually any other form of content because once it’s over, and the scores announced, few people have an interest in watching it all over again.

As a result, sporting events take center stage as viewers plan their days. Most media companies view sports as an anchor event around which all other programming is scheduled.

When will the experience be good enough?

As with any new technology, users have had to put up with bad prototypes and beta-quality equipment for several years, knowing something better will be coming soon. The public is now poised for the next generation of VR gear, sensing that every iteration moving forward will be substantially better than anything in the past.

But with football broadcasts being one of the thousands of potential applications, even the upgraded gear may not be ready for prime time.

As I see it, the ultimate football broadcast will involve a few key players on each team wearing tiny helmet-cams so viewers can experience the game the same way a player does.

This assumes video cameras that are tiny enough and durable enough to survive the rigors of full contact, and batteries and transmission modules unobtrusive to those wearing them.

It also assumes viewers and advertisers will be paying a premium for this kind of experience.

Once that’s proven, an even later generation VR will add haptic-sensation devices that allow wearers to feel the impact of getting hit on the field and, to some degree, the struggles each player feels as he plays the game.

The sale of VR gear will have to reach hundreds of millions of users before there are sufficient markets for teams and broadcasters to make the investment. Once that happens, the league will have to zero in on the right price point viewers are willing to pay a premium for that kind of viewing experience.

That could range from $50-$100 per game, or more, depending on the market. Since advertising on VR is still in its infancy, it’s unknown how much of it can be offset with sponsors.

Regardless of how good the broadcast is, virtually no one will want to spend 3-4 hours straight watching a game on VR. It will be an intermittent experience, with long interludes to enjoy a beer and some food and to talk with friends. Most likely it will be one VR set per party to share the experience.

Under optimal conditions with marked improvement in each new generation of gear, and sales of VR gear going through the roof, we are still at best five years away from any serious revenues being made from VR broadcasts of the NFL.

Final Thoughts

The first live sporting event to be broadcast on VR will be NASCAR. Fox Sports has teamed up with NextVR to bring the 58th running of the Daytona 500 to Samsung Gear VR users.

Done as a promotional event, NextVR will have 360-degree cameras positioned at the starting line, in the pit row, and in the garage. And Fox will live stream a directed broadcast of the race complete with graphics and commentary to guide virtual reality users around the track.

With Samsung underwriting the costs of this experiment, this will be a good test case to determine the overall value of the experience. Yet it is far from having cameras mounted on every driver’s helmet and having an immersive “feeling-the-heat-of-battle” experience.

We will see a number of these experiments play out over the coming years with tech companies hoping to drive sales and sports teams looking to set the stage for a more engaged audience and measurable broadcast rights somewhere down the road.

VR has the potential to make or break sports in the future. Both engagement and entertainment levels will change, as will the audience experience. It will also dispel some of the mystery behind the magic. That will be unfortunate for some but a boom for others.

It will also mean that physical sports will have to compete with virtual sports on the consumer attention index. Since video games are far more VR-ready than anything in the physical world, the real competition here may be for the mindshare of consumers in an overly distracted marketplace.