The first-ever football stadium in the metaverse is being built by Manchester City, the current EPL champions, with help from Sony’s virtual reality (VR) experts.
In a three-year agreement, City has partnered with Sony, and while the project is still in its early phases, teams of the firm’s experts have already visited the Etihad Stadium to map it digitally and create a virtual reality version of it as described in an exclusive report by inews.co.uk.
The football club’s player avatar will be transformed into the focal point of Man City in a virtual reality world utilizing image analysis and skeletal-tracking technology developed by Hawk-Eye, a subsidiary of the tech and entertainment conglomerate.
Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium will be the world’s first metaverse stadium
Manchester City officials working on the project predict that the virtual Eithad Stadium will be filled many times over, allowing fans all around the world to watch live games from the comfort of their own homes.
Other items under consideration include fans being able to meet up with other gamers in the metaverse, communicate with one another, and purchase items that aren’t available in the real world.
“The whole point we could imagine of having a metaverse is you can recreate a game, you could watch the game live, you’re part of the action in a different way through different angles and you can fill the stadium as much as you want because it’s unlimited, it’s completely virtual. I think the traditional image of someone sitting on a sofa, watching a screen, is something we cannot imagine is going still be the reality not even in 10 years, maybe in five years’ time already. Things move much faster than we think.””
-City Football Group’s chief marketing and fan engagement officer, Nuria Tarre
If football is a success in the metaverse, it has the potential to change the way television rights are distributed.
At the moment, they are sold to broadcasters as part of a Premier League-wide package, but teams are now looking at the prospect of selling them directly to fans, perhaps via their own metaverses.
