Meta’s partnership with NBA: Next killer VR application, live sports
Trends
January 23, 2023
Metaverse and VR hype have died down, with AI taking center stage. Let’s bring 2021 back.
Yesterday, Meta expanded its partnership with NBA to broadcast 52 live games in VR on Meta Quest — and it’s got some serious potential:
- “Court-side” experience just for $299 (the price of a 64GB Oculus Quest).
- Graphics aren’t there yet — imagine playing NBA 2K12.
But companies announce new partnerships and products all the time. What’s so special about this one?
VR has mostly been a dud since being released. Meta doesn’t release much data. But we can turn to some unconventional data:
- Comments per day on r/OculusQuest have been steadily declining since its peak in 2020.
- Daily players on Beat Saber, one of Oculus’ most popular games, are also falling.
What would it take to drive adoption? Killer application? Better graphics? Non-headache-inducing play?
Oculus needs some heavy upgrades or new applications to bring people back.
Enter live sports: In 2019, over 150M people in the US watched live sports at least once per month. While it’s estimated that ~14.8M Oculus units have been sold, Meta still has a long way to go.
