What Happened to the XR Watching Experience Trend in Football Fandom?

Facebook, Inc. changed its name to Meta and unveiled its dystopic plans for its controlled corner of the metaverse in October 2021. Soon after, there was a colossal rush to carve out corners of the infinite digital space and bring real-world experiences to the metaverse. Football clubs and broadcasters were among these entities rushing in.

Now, some four years later, it’d be fair to say that very few – if any – of these futuristic viewing experiences are mainstream among football fans. Some new ways of watching and following the games live have landed, but donning specialised hardware and virtually sitting in stadiums isn’t really among them.

A Rush of Virtual Football Fan Experiences

Plenty of companies and clubs tried to normalise the idea of entering the virtual world to watch football. The selling points were rather convincing. Not only could you experience the action in a new and more immersive way, but you could do so in the same virtual room as all hundreds or even thousands of your fellow fans.

Other advancements would even put your view of the game in a prime seat right in the stadium, thanks to specialised 360o cameras. This is the approach that Tru-Sport took, offering full-circle viewing at the control of the user, 3D renderings, and bi-directional audio. It looked to emulate the physical experience that drives ticket sales.

Importantly for their selling point, regular devices like computers or smartphones would be enough to use the tech, rather than a VR headset. Yet, it’s the VR headsets that unlock maximum immersion from home while only virtually being in attendance.

Serie A decided to dive into this, creating a virtual room in the metaverse in which a game between AC Milan and Fiorentina was effectively streamed for a group of fans to watch. As virtual avatars, people could interact with one another, send reactions, and the like, creating a crowd experience, but in the digital space.

Some New Experiences Landed Better

As you’ll likely know, the metaverse experience and even the more accessible XR football fan experiences haven’t exactly become the go-to ways of watching a match. However, with most countries seeing their top leagues locked behind paid subscriptions and premium TV packages, some fans seek alternate experiences to keep up with the scores.

Regular free-to-view score centre programming has remained very popular, but so too has the rather modern infusion of live online gaming with football. At the live casino online, nestled alongside Super Card and Adventures Beyond Wonderland Live is Live Football Roulette. Fans play the casino game while seeing the live scores and discussing the football in the chat.

Being played through a live stream, getting timely updates on any and all football games becomes possible. While this approach to using new tech to keep in the loop has landed rather well, some teams are still trying to push into the metaverse. Over the summer, Burnley teamed up with Rezzil to offer an immersive VR experience for their preseason friendlies against Serie A teams. Although, this seems to be more of a gimmick than a new staple of the fan experience.

Much like with Meta’s ideas for the metaverse, the time of XR football fandom was short-lived, but more convenient, accessible, and conventional tech-forward viewing options have become popular instead.