Streaming a baseball game on your phone or laptop is one thing. Have you ever wondered what this experience in the Metaverse would be like?
It’s done: Major League Baseball’s next digital viewing experience, a virtual stadium that will be set up for the Angels’ game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday, the first time the technology will be used for a MLB game.
The Virtual Stadium is pretty much what it appears to be: a 3D digital landscape of a stadium, synchronized with MLB’s Gameday 3D. Users connect online for free and can navigate and interact with other connected people, as if they were walking through a real stadium, but in a space that resembles a video game, and without local blackout restrictions. The game broadcast can be heard and will be broadcast in this virtual space on digital screens that mimic the jumbotrons of a baseball stadium.
For now, the virtual stadium is just an experiment, said Kenny Gersh, MLB’s executive vice president of media and business development. It is not expected to change the underlying media model of watching an MLB game and will not impact television audiences.
What the virtual stadium aims to do is increase exposure to sports with a more social experience than just watching a game when not in a physical stadium.
“There will always be the option to watch the game on television,” Mr. Gersh said. “There will be the option to watch it on MLB.TV, as you normally would for an out-of-market fan. You can watch it on Gameday…where you track the data. And here’s something that brings it all together.”
It remains to be seen how Wednesday’s experience will impact fans who visit the virtual stadium. MLB had already tested a less interactive version during the 2023 Celebrity Softball Game during All-Star week.
Using technology called Morpheus and developed by a metaversal network called M2 – both created and owned by Improbable, a London-based technology company that develops virtual spaces – the virtual stadium for Wednesday’s Angels-Rays game will be limited to 15,000 simultaneous users. MLB doesn’t expect huge numbers of fans to attend, however, Mr. Gersh said.
But for Herman Narula, founder and CEO of Improbable, it’s an opportunity for fans to mimic the social experience of a live baseball game, when they otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to attend a match in person.
“It’s another way to have fun, to socialize,” Mr. Narula said, “and you know what? For many fans who don’t live in the United States, it’s the only way to have a social experience while watching baseball. We really need to think about this, we really need to think about the rest of the world. That’s where the magic really happens.”
Improbable, which was founded in 2012, and its technology didn’t get into sports until they partnered with MLB.
These conversations between Improbable and MLB began last November. Improbable’s M2 network has since expanded to other sports as well, creating metaverses that serve as a sort of meeting place between fans and professional athletes, like Oleksandr Zinchenko of Arsenal football club. Last month, a virtual stadium was created for a charity football match in London, which raised money to help rebuild schools in Ukraine.
“You have to make sure things make sense,” Mr. Narula said. “There’s a stadium, okay. There is a match going on. But then we start adding all the elements that are only possible in the metaverse. For example, do you need to walk? You can fly.
“The real people who will inform the development of the virtual stadium are the fans.
Wednesday’s virtual stadium, for example, will feature interactive games, such as trivia and a digital scavenger hunt. The avatars that each user receives, although generic, will be slightly customizable, for example regarding which team jersey to wear. Users can hear the conversations of other people connected to the virtual stadium. They can also have a live view of the Angels-Rays game to see what, for example, the back of home plate, first base or third base looks like.
And, like other digital spaces, there will be security features, like the ability to mute other users.
But as virtual stadium experimentation continues, MLB can continue to test the limits of what it means to stay on the cutting edge of an ever-changing media landscape. MLB first streamed a game on its website in 2002, and over the past 12 years, MLB has collaborated with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as ‘with other platforms like Apple TV+ and Peacock, to broadcast matches.
“Anything that makes a game more accessible helps it grow,” Mr. Gersh said. “As you mentioned, the virtual stadium is aimed at a younger audience who are more comfortable with technology. But for us, it’s just about experimenting with ways to bring the game to as many people as possible, and each of those elements has its place in the overall mosaic of how we deliver the game.”
2024-01-14 21:28:50
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