Cheltenham Races to get VR highlights

British broadcaster ITV, which owns the broadcast rights to the Cheltenham Racing Festival, has teamed up with virtual reality (VR) production company VR City and media company Goodstuff to offer a series of VR highlights of the festival to viewers.

The Cheltenham Festival lasts from 14th until 17th March, and this year’s event will be the first since ITV picked up the broadcast rights in January 2017. ITV says that it is aiming to offer viewers ‘the best seat in the house’ by offering VR footage of the festival.

Content will be captured by 360-degree cameras over the course of each day, showing the races and events as well as going backstage for unique behind-the-scenes knowledge of how the festival operates. This footage will then be edited together into daily highlight packages available for VR users to download and posted at 7pm each day on ITV’s Facebook and YouTube pages.

cheltenham Racing

Ed Ross, Head of Marketing and Media at ITV said: “ITV are really excited about the opportunity of giving viewers a unique perspective onto one of the greatest sporting events in the UK. When it comes to thrills, anticipation and atmosphere, nothing comes close to the Cheltenham Festival, so we wanted to give viewers who couldn’t be there the opportunity to be there with us, right at the heart of the action.”

While Laura Moorcraft, Business Director at Goodstuff added: “As a leader in entertainment, we feel ITV are particularly well-positioned to utilise VR as a way of giving viewers an entirely new perspective of the content at their disposal, and Cheltenham Festival leapt out as the perfect opportunity to utilise the technology. The sport is renowned for its thrill and excitement, so it’s great that we can bring this to people through their mobile phones.”

Cheltenham joins a range of sporting events that are utilising VR and 360-degree technology to engage fans, including the Ski Cross World Cup and Ice Hockey.

VRFocus will continue to bring you the latest on VR in sport and broadcasting.

VR in Sport is About The Access Not The Seat

When confronted with new virtual reality (VR) content I regularly ask myself the question “Why VR?” and I often struggle to find an answer. I am a huge believer in virtual reality and the sense of presence it can give a person that no other medium can. The immersion is exceptional and when executed correctly you can create experiences that engender empathy, enlightenment and emotion. At VR City we’ve taken people to Dharamsala to sit with the Dalai Lama in his audience room; followed Justin Bieber onto the red carpet, to backstage and on stage at the MTV EMAs; and down the tunnel at Twickenham for Sam Warburton and Dylan Hartley’s coin toss. All these experiences placed people beyond the typically accessible and into new realms that even a fat bank balance and endless time to travel would fail to access. And it is that word, access, which gets my VR juices flowing. And rather than AAA, let’s call it VRA.

VR City

In the week of the Super Bowl there was a great deal of focus on how VR is going to transform the way we watch live sport. They say “a VR headset and an app is all you’ll need to be taken to the stadium to look around for yourself as the action unfolds, all without leaving the comfort of your home”. My problem with this is that you already get the very best view of a match on TV from its multitude of cameras, replays and stats so it’s hard to beat that as a viewing experience. Travel to the match and buy a ticket and you obviously lose this but what you gain is the atmosphere, the drinks before and after the match, the banter with your mates and ecstasy of celebrating a goal amongst thousands as they explode in joy at the exact same time. What you get is the ultimate in human bonding and mass participation. And although I am a huge advocate of VR, and believe that in time resolution will match our eye and haptics will match our touch, I’m not sure that live sport is what it should be focusing on right now. But give me VRA and this is when things start getting interesting.

Put us shoulder to shoulder with LeBron James as he practices his morning yoga; place us on the pitch as a player chats to an official about what he did on new year’s eve; or drop us on top of a team huddle in the bowels of an arena as the captain gees his team for a big final and we have experiences which cannot be found anywhere but in VR. The empathy, enlightenment and emotion garnered from feeling like you’re standing next to your heroes for the most exclusive moments in their lives, be that at their home or in the presence of thousands, is truly a transformative thing and one which should be explored and celebrated across sport. I’ve seen people go weak at the knees in their office as they stand on the Twickenham pitch surrounded by England players, I’ve heard people lean in quizzically as they’ve stood next to coaches giving NFL players instructions, and I’ve witnessed people duck and dive and even goad James DeGale as they spar with him in his North London gym. With access, VR is making the impossible possible, putting fans into their dream scenarios and creating memories that they will carry forever.

m ss ng p eces NBA

And with those dreams, tell them stories and you’re generating a sense of presence that leads to participation and empathy that cements a relationship. We could have fans in VR headsets feeling like they are part of the team, understanding what makes them tick, and as the brilliant Follow My Lead: The Story Of The NBA Finals does, make fans feel like they were in LeBron’s huddle before they won that 7th game. This is a whole new level of people connecting to their passions that has not been possible before. Not on TV, radio, cinema, not ever. So why VR? I’d say that is pretty good reason.