Industry proponents of XR have long argued that it will transform how viewers engage with video, turning passive viewing into a much more interactive and immersive experience. In our latest Radical Moves Broadcast Unscripted Podcast, we sat down with Lucy Trang Nguyen from Accedo, Laurence Boyd, at the time from the E1 Series, and Patrick Costello of Qualcomm, to explore the potential for XR video experiences and looking at how XR is particularly well suited for sports. We also discussed the hardware developments, increasing use of AI for smart glasses, and likely applications this will see emerge, as well as some recent experimental deployments for XR sports experiences.
Ros Woodcraft
Content Writer, Radical Moves Ltd
Solving Ecosystem Challenges
Lucy began by explaining that Accedo is firmly of the view that XR will transform the video streaming experience and become the next-generation platform for media, entertainment and sports content consumption which is why “Accedo is investing so much in extended reality”. She described how the hardware market is continuing to develop, from VR headsets to smart glasses and the AI glasses that are now becoming more widely available. She adds that “people will always consume video, but the device and medium is going to change” which is why OTT platforms and user experiences must adapt to deliver immersive, user-centric experiences on these new devices.
Qualcomm also believes strongly in XR. As Patrick highlighted, Qualcomm believes XR “is going to scale to pretty significant volumes”, highlighting that while “MR and VR will always be there as a category, scaling is happening in the lighter weight, glasses orientated form factors”. For sports fans, Patrick sees these technologies “unlocking a much more active and immersive way to view and experience sports”.
It is this certainty that XR is the future that drove Accedo, along with Qualcomm and HBS, to launch the XR Sports Alliance in 2024. Lucy described how the trio came together to try and solve the ecosystem challenges that exist across the entire value chain that act as barriers to successfully launching an XR service, specifically in the sports sector. “Sports is definitely a vertical that we believe will take XR adoption to a new level” explained Lucy. She went on to describe how, in order to solve the ecosystem problems, the XRSA founders realised they had to “onboard all kinds of experts and leaders in the field of XR and sports to really bridge the two industries”.
Patrick emphasised how Qualcomm is “really interested in continuing to experiment through the XRSA and take those lessons learned and share them out with the ecosystem, so that everyone can adjust their commercial, partnership and product strategies, accordingly.” He believes that eventually, there’s going to be “a breakthrough moment where, most fans are going to expect and demand these types of more interactive and engaging experiences”.
XR Sports Alliance E1 Deployment
The XRSA’s first experimentation framework was deployed with XRSA member E1, the world championship electric boat racing series. Laurence describes how for E1, “entering the XR world was a kind of necessity”. He believes that “we’re at the convergence point of audience behaviour and technology, where young audiences expect immersive experiences.” Unlike older generations who are used to “sitting back and watching a rectangle on the wall”, younger viewers want to “lean in, lean forwards, and engage with content in a different way”. With XR devices like headsets and AI-enabled glasses becoming more accessible, Laurence sees this as “enabling really interesting lean-forward experiences, both in terms of content acquisition and more importantly in consumer behaviour.”
Talking about the deployment, Laurence described the process of thinking about how to capture immersive content as being “really interesting and fun” which involved working together collaboratively “as a production team, both with HBS and also with E1’s wider ecosystem of operators, engineers and producers all feeding their ideas on what might make interesting immersive content.” After capturing lots of content, Laurence explained that “the clever teams at HBS and Accedo put together an XR experience around the E1 world which we then started to show to consumers… and industry people.”
Laurence described how XR content works really well experientially: people can experience E1 at an E1 event in a way that they couldn’t before even though they’re at the event. “With a headset or simulator, we can put them in the cockpit of the boat, or we can put them on a mark at the first corner, or they can stand next to the boat and have the technology to describe to them by an engineer.” As Laurence noted, it’s like an access all areas experience for consumers, or fans at the race, or eventually for people at home who will be able to download an app.
Challenges and Learnings
Laurence said there were lots of interest findings, including that “brand recognition is really high within immersive content, which is helpful from a commercial viewpoint”. The deployment highlighted both commercial potential and production challenges, which are actually quite similar to traditional content workflows but with added XR layers, while also opening up exploration into live XR content acquisition.
From a production perspective, Patrick and Laurence agreed that E1 was a really challenging production environment because the high speeds, water and noise levels created additional challenges around things like image stabilisation and sound. Looking at how all these factors came together in an immersive environment made for great learnings for all involved as well as the wider XRSA when the data and lessons learned were shared.
Looking ahead, one of the things that Partick thinks is going to be really useful learnings from the XRSA is how to enhance sport without overwhelming the viewer with too much information. While new technologies make it possible to present huge amounts of data and interactive features, too much can actually detract from the enjoyment of watching sport. He believes that the “XRSA is going to give us the opportunity to take and absorb those learnings and tweak and pivot accordingly so that we can really dial in the optimal fan experience”.
Adoption and Trends in AI and Smart Glasses
While in the past XR devices worked better for non-glasses wearers, that’s not really the case anymore. As Patrick points out, these days there’s a lot of prescription insert technology, and additionally “OEMs are very cognisant about designing for people with all different types of head shapes and sizes as well as glasses wearers and non-glasses wearers”.
Patrick, who happens to wear Ray-Ban Meat AI glasses himself, described the current AI and smart glasses market. He noted that Meta is “leading the way”, setting the standard for quality, design and brand partnerships, with demand exceeding expectations. New entrants including Google and a wave of Chinese manufacturers who are driving rapid innovation, and giving consumers more choice in styles, features and performance. AI is expected to be the key enabler of the category, turning smart glasses into highly personalised assistants that can understand context, gather information and help users navigate daily life.
Potential uses case includes obvious applications such as navigation and language translation, but also new uses cases are starting to develop through object and description capability. Patrick described how this could potentially work in practice: “let’s say a user gazes long enough at something in the real world, so the AI knows the user is interested in that object or topic, then gives information about it without being prompted.” As Patrick and Lucy highlight, as novel form factors come to market, these will enable new use cases, many of which won’t even become clear until the XR ecosystem develops.
Future of XR in Sports
From fully immersive headsets for VR experiences, to MR/AR glasses, AI glasses, and everything in between, it’s clear that different device types can be used to enhance sport in many different ways. Laurence noted that “AR glasses will be really interesting for sport for the live spectator experience, providing some of the context you get when you watch a TV broadcast, such as graphics, overlays and data, but in a live environment.” Lucy agreed with this, noting that AR glasses can be used to enhance the live action stadium experience, with features such as virtual replay and multi camera screens as digital overlays.
Lucy also mentioned a new category that’s starting to come through: AI glasses with a monocular display. On this form factor, she said, “while these might not be that relevant for a high-quality sports stream, they may be able to enhance the broadcast experience at home”. As new device categories come through, Partick believes this is, “making us redefine what we mean by immersion”. He goes on to explain, that rather than being fixed, “immersion is going to be a spectrum, based on what’s available in the devices”.
The exact nature of the experiences to be delivered to fans in the stadium and to fans at home, and the difference between the two, is still to be discovered and determined. Lucy describes how both audiences could access multi-camera angles, highlights and spatial data, whereas in-stadium fans wearing smart glasses may see content mapped onto the real-world environment, such as player statistics overlaid on the pitch or interactive experiences connected to the scoreboard.
Exactly how these experiences should be designed and customised for different users is also very much still being discovered. Lucy noted that AI is going to be a decisive factor in enabling fans to customise their user experience according to their preferences. Patrick added that for the in-stadium experience, venue operators will be able to “lean in to these fan engagement experiences” with “XR opening up whole different windows of opportunity for venue operators to integrate their services and promotions at the game on site”, integrating on-site services at the venue such as food and beverage, hospitality, and safety and security services.
Looking Ahead
As XR in sports continues to develop and accelerate, will this be a precursor for other types of content to follow suit? Laurence sees sport as “the forerunner for other [XR] entertainment experiences, because it has such high volume and high engagement… [therefore] sport does present a really good test base for these emerging technologies.” He believes that “once we see more people wearing these [devices] and using them, starting with key verticals, like sports, you’re going to see it percolate through other through other categories and verticals pretty quickly.”
Lucy noted that kid’s entertainment and edutainment is another big of interest. As she points out, “kids are very intuitive with new technologies, and if the next generation grows up with these kinds of glasses and devices, they know intuitively how to use them, and they could be just another part of their education and entertainment”.
Looking beyond glasses and headsets, Patrick added that another emerging trend is what’s being coined personal AI devices. These could be “devices worn on a belt or shirt or as a pendent, or something that sits on a desk” which will all come together as a “constellation of personal devices alongside devices like glasses and smart watches… to come together to enhance people’s lives, whether for sports or just daily use”.
When hearing Lucy, Laurence and Patrick speak about XR and the future potential, it’s impossible not to get excited about what lies ahead.
As with all the Radical Moves Podcast discussions, this was a really thought-provoking discussion and well worth a listen in full. You can listen to the Radical Moves Broadcast Unscripted XR Podcast here.
