Oculus Rift is Facebook’s virtual reality headset, and it could make them huge profits by changing the way we consume sports in the future. Much of the excitement about Oculus Rift, which Facebook acquired for $2 billion last March, was about its role in the video gaming world. Many saw Oculus Rift revolutionizing gaming by creating far more immersive e-worlds than ever before. However, now, Oculus Rift and other virtual reality vendors are rumored to be looking to use this technology to produce an infinite amount of courtside seats that it could sell to sports fans.
This week Piper Jaffray, a research firm, wrote that Facebook’s Oculus division could enable fans to watch NBA and NHL games using their virtual reality technology.
Oculus could allow fans to watch NBA and NHL games from “virtual courtside and rinkside seats,” Piper Jaffray’s Analyst, Gene Munster, wrote in a note to investors.
As we know, the NBA has already experimented with virtual reality during NBA All-Star weekend. And in the near future, the NBA is said to be running at least four events on Samsung’s virtual reality streaming system, and the league’s Commissioner, Adam Silver, has already answered questions about virtual reality courtside seats. The NHL and NFL have already done live virtual reality streaming tests as well. Courtside tickets are expensive, but any sports fan would love the chance to see a bone crushing hit on the boards at a hockey game or see their favorite NBA player up close, as if they were courtside.
While analysts say that VR broadcasts for every game may not fully come to fruition for another eight to ten years, this could be a huge innovation for vendors and fans to continue to monitor.
For Oculus Rift, this a huge opportunity, because fans could experience something similar to a courtside experience for less than the actual tickets cost; and vendors could even possibly make more money, because while the courtside experience would sell for less, there is an unlimited amount to sell.