ManCity hope to fill the virtual Etihad Stadium several times over, allowing fans to watch live games from anywhere in the world.
Manchester City have begun building the world’s first football stadium inside the metaverse with the help of virtual reality experts at Sony. Using image analysis and skeletal-tracking technologies created by Hawk-Eye, a subsidiary of the tech and entertainment giant, the club’s stadium will become the central hub of City in a virtual reality world. Club officials working on the project envisage a time when City can fill a virtual Eithad Stadium several times over, allowing supporters who may never go to Manchester to watch live games from the comfort of their own homes anywhere in the world. The Premier League’s digital pioneers have signed a three-year deal with Sony and, though work is still in its infancy, teams of the company’s experts have already visited the Etihad to map it digitally and recreate it in virtual reality. Other ideas being explored involve fans meeting players in the metaverse, interacting with one another and purchasing products that are not available in real life. “The whole point we could imagine of having a metaverse is you can recreate a game, you could watch the game live, you’re part of the action in a different way through different angles and you can fill the stadium as much as you want because it’s unlimited, it’s completely virtual,” Nuria Tarre, City Football Group’s chief marketing and fan engagement officer, tells i. “But also you’re in control of what you want to be watching at that time. There’s not one broadcast point of view, you can look at it through any angle of the stadium. That’s the sky – the limit.” The metaverse is currently accessed through a headset and navigated via hand controllers. Developers working within football and virtual reality believe the technology would currently allow for a match to be replicated in a digital version, similar to how the Fifa video game looks, but that in future fans could watch real games played within a virtual stadium. Full story here
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