Brad Allen described his first time putting on a virtual-reality headset as a “holy whatever moment.” He experienced another one last night -- a mere two years later -- when he took the stage to accept the Best in Sports Technology award on behalf of his company, NextVR. Allen in his on-stage remarks expressed excitement about how the sports industry has embraced virtual reality in the last year. “We’ve gotten engagement from every league, broadcaster, brand in the world, and it’s global,” he said. “It’s really exciting.” In addition to completing a $30.5M funding round consisting of major sports entities in ’15, NextVR made huge strides in expanding the production of live sporting events in virtual reality, in part through a partnership with Fox Sports. Those strides led the company to victory in the category over Zebra Technologies, Catapult and fellow VR outfit Strivr Labs. But like any good technology executive, Allen’s sights are set on the future, which he believes hinges on increasing the frequency of events streamed in virtual reality. “There’s been a lot of one-off events,” he said. “As a sports fan, you want to see continuation of those. If you’ve seen an NBA game, you want to see more. You don’t want to just see one here and one there. And the other thing is that the hardware is going to get better, resolution is going to get better, it’s going to be a brand new way to really experience sports unlike anything before.”
