Image via psfk.com
It’s 6pm Pacific Standard Time. You just sat down courtside with three of your closest friends from college. One of them was your roommate freshman year at the University of Arizona. The same one that wore the same pair of dorm basketball shorts for what seemed like an entire semester, and somehow managed to verifiably visit the laundry room only once. The two other guys are friends you met while attending freshman orientation. All of them were awkward then, but have turned into responsible adults with kids and families. None of them have perfect lives, but it’s still a far cry from picking up keg cups off the ground and hopping a fence into Kappa Sigma’s fraternity house.
As the game begins, Rob starts on about how this is the year, your Wildcats in Sean Miller’s 20th season as head coach are finally going to make it out of the elite 8. The year is 2029, and Sean Miller, despite having 16 consecutive top-5 recruiting classes has gone a combined 0-11 in the game leading up to the Final Four. You smell a mixture of sweat, Budweiser, and cheap cologne. You can feel the crowd’s intensity behind you at the Facebook Center, as you watch the final minutes of the first-half sponsored by SolarCity.
Bill mentions that he really needs to go to the bathroom. Rob looks at him and says “really Bill, there’s 50 seconds until halftime”. John starts swearing as Miller’s pack-line defense gives up another uncontested 3-point basket. Scoreboard reads 50-55, Kentucky with the lead. The introduction of the 30-second shot clock along with computerized refereeing has made the once frustrating college game enjoyable. “Oh no, I think I’m burning something!” yells Tim, “pause the game!”.
As the game stops, all four friends take off their headsets. Bill rushes to use the bathroom in his Taos, New Mexico cabin, Rob stands up to let the dogs out in Rockford, Illinois, John asks his son if he finished his interactive holographic algebra module, and Tim puts out a fire on his circa 2005 stainless steel Weber gas grill (they don’t make them like they used to). This is the 10th sporting event in the past year the four best friends have watched together.
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The elephant in the stadium and what no one is acknowledging, is that in a world where technology has the potential to surpass the current product, what will become of the coliseums that litter metropolitan landscapes worldwide? If there is absolutely no increased utility in going to a live event versus plugging in, what will teams do to draw an in-person audience? Virtual Reality may evolve to the point where the idea of getting in your car and driving to the ballpark is as passe as getting in your car and driving to Blockbuster.
Imagine the possibility of watching a game from any angle, getting the exact replay you want, sitting courtside, on the 50-yardline, or front row for the Mayweather-Pacquiao VI weigh-in as the 60-year old steroid abusers take turns telling blow-by-blow tales of how this will really be the last great prize fight. Eliminated from current vernacular will be terms like $7 hot dogs, and $10 PBR tall boys. Gone are the lines of men waiting their turn to piss into a trough. God forbid you don’t like pissing in front of a group of strangers, as you awkwardly stand there for 30-seconds before giving up and washing your hands in defeat. Society may finally be liberated from the whims of owners who continue to raise ticket prices so unreasonably high a family has to save for a vacation to the ballpark.
The absolute knock your $200 smart socks off beauty of it all is that the future is almost here. Downloaded atmosphere, and streamed experience are just a click away. Imagine watching games with your closest friends and family despite being thousands of miles away. Imagine stopping a game at a moment’s notice (oh wait we can already do that)… watching a game that is so interactive you can vote in real-time for top plays (say goodbye to watching five variations of the same diving baseball catch on the evening highlights), and imagine watching incredibly polished athletes train using the same technology. Experience catharsis as your favorite team attempts to take your city hostage (looking at you Jacksonville, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Oakland, San Diego, and Seattle) in an effort to get taxpayers to fund another monstrosity while the billionaire owner sits back and complains about all the money they are losing, only this time it’s you shouting back “screw you, I’m watching from home!”
Of course, you can always make the argument that nothing will ever replace the experience of going to a game. We’ll just have to wait and see, but talk to me when you have an alternative that is more enjoyable than the current experience. The Virtual Reality experience can give us unlimited freedom of watching a game how we want to watch a game and who we want to watch that game with. Before you start feeling sorry for the billionaire owners out there, rest assured that they will find a way to capitalize off of this new experience. We can only hope that the price of watching the game pop-up free dwarfs the cost of going to a game. Smart owners like the Golden State Warriors’ co-owner Peter Guber are already embracing the technology, but how many will be remembered in the same vein as Blockbuster CEO John Antioco when he infamously laughed at a partnership with a then fledgling startup called Netflix.
On April 29th, 2015, the Baltimore Orioles played the Chicago White Sox in front of an eerily empty crowd, with the Orioles winning 8-2 at home. It was the first known major league game played without spectators, but it won’t be the last.
