The Golden State Warriors’ Andre Iguodala has a new accessory. Or at least, his bobblehead does.
The Iguodala bobblehead, which will be given away to the first 10,000 fans on Jan. 10 attending a game against the Miami Heat, is carrying golf clubs and sporting a virtual reality headset.
While Iguodala is known for his fascination with both technology and golf (also technology with golf), he said he does not yet own a VR headset, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. But as an investor in startup companies, he is the prime candidate to be the face of the intersection between basketball and virtual reality.
According to the newspaper, the shooting guard “admires the potential of virtual technology to build empathy and emotion.” Iguodala said that he hopes that VR could help people to experience the “social injustices facing African Americans” such as instances of negative encounters with police officers.
My favorite bobblehead we’re doing this year: @andre wearing a VR headset while swinging a golf club. #Warriors #sportsbiz pic.twitter.com/wnhvW9xRI0
— Daniel Brusilovsky (@danielbru) October 6, 2016
The bobblehead is just the beginning of the Warriors’ experimentation with VR. The team was filmed as part of the first VR sports documentary that the NBA and Oculus launched after the 2016 NBA Finals. Peter Guber, a Warriors co-owner, has invested in NextVR, a virtual reality broadcasting startup.
Guber’s investment puts the Warriors in a position to potentially be ahead of the curve in terms of NBA teams’ involvement with VR. The Warriors are experimenting with ways the team could integrate virtual reality into the fan experience.
This week, Google introduced a VR headset, and another new headset from Sony will be on sale next week. Still, most NBA fans have not used the technology.