There’s no question that the best way to watch football is live in person, and close to the action. As nice as it would be to be able to attend every match we want to with the best seats in the stadium, however, it’s not realistic. Travel time, work, weather, sickness, and many other regular aspects of life can interfere with our preferred way to engage. With that said, there are possibilities in tech that could help bridge the gap and let us experience a new level of enjoyment from the comfort of our homes.
A Technological Precedent
Technology evolves so fast that it’s easy to overlook just how much it’s already added to the football experience over the last 50 years. Simply being able to reliably watch on TV is a prime example we take for granted, and online betting has added just as much convenience. World Cup betting has always been enormous, but it used to require tracking down and betting in physical locations. Online access not only streamlines the betting process, but some websites even provide live streams right on their websites, providing another level of convenience. These systems have done great things for increasing access for football fans, but they’re far from the last leaps the beautiful game can expect from the world of tech.
The Virtual and Augmented Future
The next big steps in watching football in Manchester come from the potential of virtual and augmented reality technology. Each of these could completely reshape how we think of watching football, and the technology for each has already been proven effective.
Virtual reality is the form most people will be more familiar with. This is where you wear a headset that displays video around you as if you were really within an environment. VR already has a place in video games and video content, and it holds immense additional potential in live sports streaming. With VR, you could watch from a virtual seat in your home with the best virtual view available, all while staying as comfortable as possible. Augmented reality works by using a headset to display digital images over the real physical world. For sports games in Manchester, this could let the technology place a bird’s-eye view of a match over a cleared space. You could turn your coffee table into a 3D view of the game, for example, letting you enjoy a view not possible in the real world.
Potential in a New Approach
A fantastic advantage of these potential new approaches comes from how well they could be fused with existing options thanks to their digital foundations. It’s entirely possible to combine existing football betting opportunities with AR and VR approaches for example, as applications like web browsers integrate seamlessly into headset systems. From Premier League games to international matches, newer viewing methods could only add to what is already a brilliant experience, creating a more welcoming football landscape.
As for when this technology might reach the mainstream, it’s not as far away as you might think. The devices for these ideas already exist, it just doesn’t have a broad enough reach yet to justify the investment required to make it mainstream. With VR and AR becoming only more popular over time, make no mistake, these options arriving in Manchester is a matter of when and not if.
