VOKE has announced a new partnership with media giant Star India to stream live sporting events in virtual reality to fans in India.
Star India has become the leading sports provider in India, with its eight Star Sports channels and Hotstar video streaming service.
This year’s Kabaddi World Cup in Ahmedabad, India will be streamed live by Hostar, with the new partnership with VOKE allowing fans to experience the events in virtual reality for the first time.
“Star India is one of the most iconic media companies in the work and has been focused on transforming sports in India. This partnership will allow them to provide live, immersive virtual reality experiences to their users for the first time,” VOKE co-founder and CEO Dr. Sankar Jayaram said. “The flexibility of our technology platform in unique and enables media companies to reach their audiences across a variety of mediums and deliver personalized VR experiences to all fans like never before.”
Get The Latest Sports Tech News In Your Inbox!
VOKE’s live virtual reality stream of the Kabaddi World Cup will be available to host on Google Cardboard and Gear VR headsets. If a viewer does not have a headset, a personalized, 2D user-controlled experience will be available on Hotstar.com or on the Hotstar app.
“We owe our loyal and growing platform users the very best video experience in the world,” Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan said in a statement. “Fans in India look to Hotstar to set the benchmark for video streaming. We are excited to collaborate with VOKE to bring a dramatic new live experience to sports fans.”
Star India has seen growth in viewership for its sports programming. More than 100 million people reportedly followed the Indian Premier League on Hotstar this season. Kabaddi, the fastest growing sport on India, has also seen a large increase in viewership. A reported 213 million plus people have tuned into Star Sports of Hotstar for the league’s third season, a 36 percent jump from last year.
VOKE is no stranger to live streaming large sporting events, with the company producing a virtual reality stream of the NCAA Final Four Semifinals and National Championship in April. However, this will be the first time a virtual reality stream of this magnitude will be available through multiple headsets and systems.
The way VOKE’s platform is set up, it allows media companies to host the VR content on their personal websites and branded applications instead of making it be exclusively available on the VOKE site.
Users can access the TrueVR steam by selecting the Google Cardboard feature in Hotstar’s apps or by downloading the Hotstar Gear VP app from the Oculus Store.