NBA, Samsung put full-court press on virtual reality

Edward C. Baig | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Samsung virtual reality brings you courtside from the couch The National Basketball Association is promising hoops fans with the proper Oculus-powered Gear VR headset from Samsung an immersive 360-degree viewing for its All-Star Game. Ed Baig tries it out.

NEW YORK — You don't have a ticket to this weekend's NBA All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden, much less a pricey seat in the first few rows.

But in the weeks ahead, you'll be able to catch some of the action as if watching courtside. (Well, almost.) You'll need an Oculus-powered Gear VR headset from Samsung.

The National Basketball Association will be capturing the All-Star game, along with the 3-point shooting, slam-dunk contest and slam-dunk practices in virtual reality — promising hoops fans with the proper equipment an immersive 360-degree viewing experience.

Besides the $199.99 Gear VR Innovator Edition headset, you'll need the $299.99 (with two-year contract) Galaxy Note 4 phablet required to power this virtual reality headset. Captured VR footage is expected to be made available for free in a couple of weeks or so, via Samsung's Milk VR virtual reality app.

The NBA has been experimenting with VR for a while. After Facebook acquired Oculus last year, the league teamed up with NextVR to record a springtime game between the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors.

"We showed it to everybody around (the league offices), and the first reaction was always an 'expletive, wow, this is amazing,'" says Jeff Marsilio, the NBA's vice president for global media distribution.

The league's full-court press into virtual reality continues Friday with a VR showroom to be held at an annual NBA All-Star Technology Summit. Invited guests will be able to check out an October pre-season match in Rio de Janeiro between the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers that was produced in VR and shot by NextVR. BigLook360 will be doing the shooting for the All-Stars events.

"The real question for us is, 'Does 4K and does virtual reality provide an amazing immersive experience that we cannot otherwise provide?'" Marsilio says. "And then we find a way to make that investment."

VR cameras shoot in every direction, with the results stitched together in post-production.

WHAT IT'S LIKE

I got to watch some Cavs-Heat footage, and while the VR picture was pixelated, you can certainly see past that and imagine the possibilities.

Donning the headset, I gazed up and saw the ceiling and scoreboard, then looked down as if I were standing on the gym floor. Straightaway, players and refs whizzed by. Glancing to the right I noticed a courtside photographer crouching on the sideline.

Beyond lingering technological hurdles, it's difficult to imagine watching an entire NBA game wearing the headsets. There's that comfort thing over an extended period. The experience is isolating. You want to be able to high-five the pal sitting next to you (in the arena or your living room).

It's certainly possible that the same kind of social interaction tools that have come to multiplayer video games, such as avatars and voice chat, could make their way to virtual reality.

"That has to be at least one of the things Mark Zuckerberg was thinking about when Facebook, the most social company, acquired Oculus," Marsilio says. The holy grail for Marsilio would be to deliver the VR experience for a live game.

He concedes virtual reality "doesn't replace the experience of being at the game. "But (with) fans all over the world who don't have an opportunity that often to actually attend a game, and even rarer watch a game courtside, this gives them the next best thing."

E-mail: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter