The NBA is now the first major sports league to commit to a regular schedule of live games in VR after reaching a multiyear deal with NextVR to produce live weekly game broadcasts as part of the League Pass out-of-market package. The move expands beyond prior individual VR game productions. The first game as part of the new deal will be next Thursday's home opener for the Kings and their new Golden 1 Center. Over the course of the ’16-17 season, all 30 teams will be featured in VR, though the NBA has not yet released a full schedule of the VR productions or indicated what day of the week will be favored. “We’re now to the point in VR where one-off tests aren’t going to be enough anymore. We needed to create a full slate of regular programming in order to keep growing and innovating,” said NBA VP/Global Media Distribution Jeff Marsilio. "We believe we have something that will push the envelope in this space and bring the game closer to all our fans, particularly those who won’t have the opportunity to see a game live.” Financial terms were not disclosed, but the addition of the VR games will not produce a price change for League Pass, which costs $199.99 for the full-season package and is managed by the NBA Digital partnership between the league and Turner Sports. The VR productions will also include graphics, multiple camera angles and announcers, building beyond more raw efforts typical in the nascent live VR broadcasting space. “We’ve taken a big and important step forward with the NBA and have gone beyond demonstrating the technology to building a product around the technology,” said NextVR Exec Chair Brad Allen. "And by having regularly scheduled games that are live, this goes a long way to answering the question for anybody thinking about buying VR equipment about whether there will be compelling content.”
