Metaverse presents the tantalizing prospect of a sports team like Manchester City, which aims for a more immersive interaction from the fans.
English Premier League club Manchester City have set out to build the world’s first football stadium in the Metaverse, in partnership with Sony.
Manchester City Football Club has partnered with Sony Corporation to allow its fans to participate in all of the club’s matches, wherever they are. As part of this project, which is still in its early stages and is expected to run for three years, virtual reality specialists have conducted the first digital mapping of a football club’s stadium in order to develop a true virtual reality space.
This metaverse project could bring huge revenue to the club, considering that Twitter account She has 11.6 million subscribers. The club’s stadium, known as Al Ittihad, will be the main component of its virtual reality version, which will be created using Sony’s Hawk-eye tracking technology.
The digital ambitions of the English club
Nuria Tari, City Marketing Director, spoke about their expectations for this metaverse project: “The interest of the metaverse is to be able to recreate a match, watch it live, participate in the action from different angles and fill the stadium just as much as you want, because it’s unlimited and completely virtual.” “
The metaverse can be described as a virtual world with a particularly advanced visual and technical experience and a mainstay of decentralized finance (DeFi) based on cryptocurrencies. This world is inhabited by autonomous communities, backed by interoperable blockchain networks.
The club, a seven-time Premier League champion, is exploring the possibility of allowing fans to meet their players in the metaverse and purchase products not available in the physical world. Purchases can be made using cryptocurrencies.
How will this new metaverse work?
Participation in the metaverse takes place through a virtual reality headset and hand controllers to interact with this digital space. Reality Labs, a division of Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, aims to be an early player in the metaverse. Similarly, with its recent purchase of gaming giant Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has also known interest in this new sector.
Within the current development of this metaverse, it is possible to watch a football match in the virtual world, which is similar to a FIFA video game. The ideal situation, of watching real matches in the stadium, would not be “too far” from verification, according to Andy H, co-founder of Rezzil. Rezzil is the company behind the Player 22 metaverse, which is used to train Premier League players.
If the metaverse concept spreads, Premier League clubs could sell their broadcasting rights to fans directly through their virtual worlds. Gartner Infotech recently announced that 25% of people will spend an hour per day within the metaverse by 2026, mainly for entertainment. Premier League broadcasts are currently sold to TV networks as a bundle.
However, some people are not happy to see the metaverse in the hands of large corporations or organizations. In a survey by the Advocate Group, 77% of 1,000 Americans surveyed were particularly concerned about the role Facebook would play in the future of an immersive virtual world.
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