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Fox Sports, NextVR To Produce Friday’s Bundesliga Opener In Virtual Reality

Fox Sports and NextVR will provide football fans with a unique perspective by producing Friday’s opening match of the '16-17 Bundesliga season in virtual reality. The game between defending German champion Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen will be the first live broadcast of a Bundesliga match to an int'l audience in VR. It will also be Fox Sports’ first publicly available VR broadcast of a football match. NextVR on the other hand already has several football matches under its belt. It most recently produced three Int’l Champions Cup matches in VR. Fox Sports and NextVR initially wanted to produce a Bundesliga game last season, but time simply ran out. “We wanted to do some kind of big blowout event like this,” Fox Sports SVP of Field Operations Michael Davies said. “We wanted to find a seminal event that we could both work on and build upon what NextVR is doing in other soccer properties.” The production from Munich’s Allianz Arena is a collaboration between Fox Sports, NextVR and the German Football League (DFL). Fox Sports secured Bundesliga media rights in 80 territories from '15-16 and sees Friday’s broadcast as an educational experience, Davies said. “The reason we think this is important is we truly believe that VR is a really interesting and potentially disruptive technology,” he said. “We want to be the ones that understand what makes good live VR.” NextVR will have seven cameras on site to capture the action. Fox Sports and NextVR declined to comment on production costs, but NextVR EVP of Corporate Strategy David Cramer said that it is less costly than a regular TV broadcast due to the smaller footprint and crew size of VR productions. None of NextVR's cameras require a camera operator, for example.

GLOBAL AUDIENCE: Unlike previous collaborations between Fox Sports and NextVR, the production of the Bundesliga opener has yet to attract any commercial interest. Earlier this year, the VR broadcasts of the Daytona 500 and the U.S. Open saw Toyota and Lexus, respectively, as commercial partners. The game will be available free-of-charge in the Fox Sports section of the NextVR app, which is currently only available on Samsung mobile phones and through Samsung Gear VR. NextVR, however, said its content will be available on additional platforms later this fall. The match will be available in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Asia and select countries in Europe. Fox Sports and NextVR are currently finalizing the exact list of countries with access to the broadcast. “We see a very high correlation between a marquee event in sports and high viewership numbers,” Cramer said. “NextVR has seen significant audience growth as VR hardware has become more accessible and affordable.” NextVR declined to share viewership figures for its previous productions.

NextVR camera at an ICC match.
GUIDED EXPERIENCE: The live broadcast will only be part of the VR experience, as only early adopters and people who want to get a peek into the future are expected to tune in on Friday, Davies said. “You need to acknowledge at this stage people are not going to sit there with their headsets, watching three hours of a football game,” he said. Viewers will be guided through the experience by a dedicated VR commentary. Fox Sports and NextVR will also experiment with replay during the Bundesliga game. “Communications is extremely important,” Davies said. “Announcers will be pointing out the various things you as a viewer might have missed in VR.” Former U.S. Bundesliga player Heath Pearce and Fox Sports' Mark Rogondino will provide the live commentary during the game. Following the live broadcast, Fox Sports and NextVR are expected to share footage with partners, including the DFL and its clubs. Fox Sports is also talking to its European sister networks Sky UK, Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia about how to best use the VR footage following the game. There are currently no plans to produce additional Bundesliga matches in VR, but both NextVR and Fox Sports said they will continue to look at marquee events to move the figurative VR ball forward.

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