Fox Sports and Next VR teamed up again to stream live sports programming in virtual reality, this time bringing a wide view to the 2016 Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament quarterfinal, semifinal and championship games at Madison Square Garden.
All seven games will be broadcast in VR starting March 10 through the March 12 championship game at 5:30 p.m. ET. VR viewers need Samsung’s Gear VR headset, which uses a Samsung Galaxy smartphone as its display.
Headset wearers will get HD views from center court, near the sideline player huddles, and under the basket as well as audio and streams of graphics highlighting player stats, scores and game updates.
Fox Sports and Next VR teamed up for the first time earlier this year, bringing the Daytona 500 and a Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) fight to virtual reality. In 2015, Fox Sports, through its Fox Lab initiative, and NextVR tested a VR broadcast of the U.S. Open from Chambers Bay.
More Fox VR broadcasts are planned.
The Big East VR broadcasts will be available free worldwide through the Fox Sports section on the NextVR portal. Samsung Gear VR owners can download the NextVR app on any Gear VR headset compatible phones. Instructions are available at Nextvr.com/gearvr-live. Game-time information is available at BigEast.com/tournaments.
NextVR, launched in 2009, has more than 26 patents granted or pending for the capture, compression, transmission and display of virtual-reality content.
