Some first thoughts about live immersive basketball

One of the immersive views is behind and underneath the basket.

I got to watch the first quarter of tonight’s Lakers-Bucks game from the front row by the scorer’s table. Except when I was suspended in the air behind both baskets. Or maybe in a concourse watching people walk to their seats, or occasionally right out on the court for the national anthem or a Laker Girls performance.

In other words, I was watching it in my Vision Pro during the first live Apple Immersive sports broadcast.

The experience overall was surprisingly… normal? The video just played, and it felt like watching any other Apple immersive video on the Vision Pro, other than the fact that it was happening live.

Clearly, Apple and its partners (including Spectrum SportsNet, the Lakers’ TV partner) have learned a lot from their first couple of years experimenting with immersive video. Unlike previous sports highlight packages, the live broadcast kept switching camera angles to a minimum. For most of the quarter, I watched either from courtside or from behind each basket. I found that I got the hang of switching perspectives when flipping from one basket to the other pretty quickly, and the view of the action was definitely better behind the basket. But seeing action from center court, courtside, also felt like a rare treat.

Again, my real surprise was that it held up so well: The video was smooth, though when LeBron James zipped right past me, he did get a bit blurry. I’m sure the video quality wouldn’t hold up to close inspection if it were compared with a highly produced and massaged immersive documentary, but it didn’t feel any lower quality than Apple’s previous pro sports efforts, like its MLS, NBA, and Super Bowl highlight packages.

While I was able to tell the score by looking up at the scoreboard, Apple and Spectrum helpfully added a score graphic located… down on the floor, basically. It never got in the way of the action, but I could look down and quickly pick up the score and the time if I needed to.

It was novel to hear the play-by-play announcers, who were calling the game specifically for the immersive broadcast, tell me that Bucks coach Doc Rivers was “off to your left on your Vision Pro.” The announcers did a fine job, though I do wonder if it might be wise to have an option that turns off the announcers and lets you just experience the entire thing as a spectator.

If I have one real criticism of the broadcast, it’s that I’m not sure the sound was entirely right. It sounded good, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t exactly sound spatial. Sound is one of the ways your brain places you into a scene, and it felt like the sound I was hearing was not really attached to a spatial environment that matched what I was watching. There’s probably some more work to be done on that front.

Still, this was pretty awesome. Having been to a few women’s college basketball games this past year and sat in the front row, I’ve come to appreciate that when you can see the size of the players, hear them talking, and really get a sense of depth as the ball moves around the court, it’s a very different game than you get in a flat television image. Apple and Spectrum’s immersive NBA game had a similar effect. I’m ready to see more.

(Anyone with a Vision Pro should be able to watch the replay of the Lakers-Bucks game starting Sunday at 9 am Pacific via the NBA app.)