Opinion: Video in All Forms Gives Fans Plenty of Reasons To Stay Home

HD, UHD, VR, and more are proof positive of the power of video to transform the sports-fan experience

When global spotlights turn to world sports events, technology steps up to meet the challenge, making sports the perfect place to glimpse the future of video. Benchmarks have already been set. The 2018 World Cup in Russia will be broadcast in 4K. Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, is partnering with Panasonic and Sony to meet its pledge of an event broadcast entirely in 8K video in 2020. As these goals for super-high-definition production are realized, viewers will be able to experience the Olympics more clearly than ever before. Screen resolution is only the beginning, however.

Adobe Systems’ Bill Roberts: “For fans around the world, sports on phones, tablets, and televisions may offer the best seats in town.”

With March Madness just past, the event that brings a live-streaming surge as fans around the world tune in to watch the NCAA’s annual basketball tournaments, we are reminded that virtual and augmented reality, machine learning, and the ability of creators to collaborate across time and space are ushering in an era of real-time yet augmented footage that could eventually eclipse the experience of being there in person.

Real-Time Collaboration Yields Real-Time Action
History was made in Berlin in 1936 when the Olympic Games became the first to have live television coverage of a sports event. Today’s bracket-obsessed basketball fans probably can’t imagine cramming into one of 25 television-viewing rooms that were set up around Berlin for those Games.

I thought about that moment in history 25 years ago, when I was a production editor at CTV in Toronto and we struggled to support coverage of the Barcelona Olympics. At that time, sports events were broadcast only on one national channel, telling one narrative, and content was packaged to appear in primetime. In 1992, the Games’ technological breakthrough was airing in HDTV, roughly 10 years before that technology was widespread. To edit any footage, we still had to “physically” move the media via satellite links.

We had come a long way from black and white at that time, but, by last year’s “stay at home” Rio Olympics, the world had fundamentally changed again. As global networks broadcast more than 81,500 hours of coverage, more than 2.5 times the number logged for the London Games, traditional broadcasters competed with mobile apps and live streams. Outlets like NBC were highly criticized for airing on tape delay — once a technological necessity — and for editing content from the opening speeches.

The demand for unfiltered, real-time coverage has emerged, and technology is evolving to meet it. Behind the scenes, editors and producers have an increased ability to edit footage and insert special effects with minimal delay. Another growing development is the ability to access, sort, and insert historical footage in real time through collaborative, cloud-based software systems. If Arsenal’s famed goalkeeper Petr Cech blocks a goal at the Russian World Cup, soon you’ll be able to see his track record of past blocks at the same time.

Virtual Reality Will Bring Us Closer to the Action
Just as we see things in real time, our viewpoints may also be enhanced through emerging VR and AR technology. Although the majority of experiences may always be traditional flat video because of its larger audience reach, we’re already seeing broadcasters experiment with 360 and virtual-reality supplements that allow sports fans to immerse in a stadium experience without ever leaving home.

After the 2015 World Series, for example, Fox Sports created a 360 experience immersing fans in the Kansas City Royale’s first Series win in 30 years. And this year, the NBA became the first major sports entity to broadcast a game in VR each week in the 2016-17 season.

As this technology develops, many of the current barriers — low resolution, low frame rates, limited field of view — are likely to be solved, opening up the power of virtual sports attendance to anyone with a phone. Sure, you might not fly to Moscow for the 2018 World Cup, but VR may enable you to grab an even better seat on the sidelines.

Instant Curation
As we move into the future, smaller, more powerful devices will enable an explosion in viewpoints, giving fans even more ways to feel connected to their sport. Already, younger professionals like Devin Supertramp have demonstrated the possibilities of cameras in unexpected places, bringing the experience of extreme sports to your couch.

Sports teams like Clemson’s are also embracing this phenomenon. They put student videographers around the stadium with smartphones, enabling them to shoot, edit, and post all-access content immediately in traditional video as well as 360 and VR and on Snapchat. Today’s Ref Cams could become player cams, automatically edited to combine different players’ point of view for highly accurate playback shots.

At the same time, existing footage shot by the audience may become an integral part of the sports experience. Imagine, for instance, if all the cellphone footage taken in a stadium could be automatically curated, combined, and edited into a short highlights video that you could access when you got to your car at the end of the game. What if you could see through the eyes of all the cameras watching Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl? Real-time footage would move from grainy to glossy, truly democratizing the content and experience of viewership.

Blue Devil or Tar Heel?
Once pioneered for these major sports moments, technological advances will find their way into wider broadcast production, onto YouTube, and into consumer hands via smartphones and tablets. Rather than a huge breakthrough, we’ll see rapid iterations, driving incremental improvements that will quickly add up to a more immersive, customized experience. If you tune into the Japan Olympics in 2020, chances are high that you’ll be watching in real time on a super-high-resolution screen with dramatically improved sound quality. In the not so distant future, you will almost certainly have the possibility to dive into a simultaneous VR experience and may have an augmented-reality guide to explain players’ histories or sport statistics to complement your viewing experience.

As the technology improves, viewers will no longer be limited to just the choice of what television set to buy to maximize their experience. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Blue Devil or a Bulldog. For fans around the world, sports on phones, tablets, and televisions may offer the best seats in town.

At Adobe, Roberts oversees Premiere Pro, celebrating its 25th year in 2017.