What Happened to the Foretold Future of Watching Live Football in the Metaverse?
At the end of October 2021, Facebook made the bold move to rebrand to Meta and smash into tech and entertainment headlines by revealing their Metaverse. A virtual space within the metaverse, the Meta Metaverse immediately signalled that a huge change was coming. Brands from all arenas sought to dive in swiftly.
This includes the football community. As quickly as May 2022, Serie A announced that it was taking to the metaverse via The Nemesis to reach fans in the Middle East and North Africa. In over three years since, given how rapidly new tech takes off – especially hyped new tech – you’d think we’d all be in the metaverse for live football.
Obviously, we’re not putting on VR headsets each week to watch the football. So, what happened to the momentum behind the metaverse for football fans, and are we even getting close to this foretold future?
Bridge Technology Continues to Grow in Prominence
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A technological analogue to the metaverse in mainstream entertainment would be live streaming. Metaverse viewership of live sports requires live streaming, with the rest of the experience built around that stream. For now, watching live content from the comfort of your home while online requires live streaming tech.
So, how is live streaming doing with audiences? The global market is already valued at $2.6 billion and is tipped to grow to $9.8 billion. In 2023, live eCommerce generated over $682 billion in sales in China alone, and continues to grow in Western markets.
It’s also being popularised in increasingly creative and immersive ways in interactive online entertainment products. The array of live baccarat online is a testament to this. So popular is playing the classic card game through a live streamer with a professional croupier to run the show that there are now several different rooms, themes, and variants of live baccarat to meet demand.
Can Live Sports Bring People to the Metaverse?
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Even with the popularity of live streaming, the metaverse is a big leap away. Whether it’s the idea of beaming into a virtual seat or exploring a large virtual space with a screening inside, the concept remains foreign to mainstream audiences. On the face of it, such VR viewing of live sports is also too inconvenient for the benefits.
Companies are trying to change this. Condense Reality, for example, has raised millions in funding to create a way for live performances to be streamed into the metaverse in 3D. They’ve succeeded with some concerts already, but expanding this concept to cover an 11 vs 11 football game will be a whole new challenge entirely.
Without such advancements, going into the metaverse to watch a live football game would be the same as sitting in your living room and watching the TV. However, with the metaverse, you’ve got to put on headwear that cancels out the real world and likely be in a somewhat crude or unimpressive virtual space with a big screen.
In mid-2024, it was revealed that Meta had pumped over $45 billion into metaverse development, with very little to show. Even with the odd foray into the metaverse from sports fans and broadcasters, it simply hasn’t gained traction. If Meta’s dystopic statements come true, the metaverse is the future of watching sports.
For now, that future seems to be rather distant – especially when it comes to live football matches.