Josh Hendrickson
The NBA has been on hiatus due to the ongoing pandemic, but it’s coming back under some tight restrictions. Chief among them, there won’t be a live audience. If sitting courtside is your idea of a good time, then Oculus is here to help. Through its Venues app, you can watch some games live with other viewers from virtual courtside seats.
Oculus Venues, for Oculus Quest and GO, isn’t a new app, and it’s not new to sports either. The VR app has put people “in the audience” at concerts, soccer games, and more. When you’re in the app, you can see other VR viewers in avatar form. You can even interact with them.
This isn’t the first time Oculus Venues has aired NBA games, but the company behind it changed. In the past, Venues partnered with NextVR, but Apple bought that company. So this season Yahoo Sports and its sister company RYOT is stepping up to the free throw line.
Oculus Venues won’t air every game, so you’ll want to check the schedule to see which games you can watch. And naturally, you’ll need either an Oculus Quest or Go.
