Virtual Training - A Competitive Edge or New Standard

Jordan M. Jones -

Virtual reality allows for teams to engage with content and plays by removing the physical and prohibitive variables around practice and training. One example given on the STriVR website details the ways players can enter the play virtually and view the play not only from the playbook drawing but at the field level, even interacting with other players learning the same content, (Virtual Reality Sports Training | Use Cases.2018 ).

On August 23rd, 2021, virtual and mixed reality startup, StatusPRO, announced its seed raise of $5.2M. The firm bed’s itself with partners from KB Partners and TitletownTech, Greycroft, Verizon Ventures, Haslam Sports Group, 49ers Enterprises, and SC Holdings, (Lamar Jackson-Backed Virtual Reality Business Gets Fresh Funding. 2021). The firm also builds on this stable investment with a strategic partnership with NFL legend, Lamar Jackson, the quarterback for?Baltimore Ravens?and All-American winner of the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Award, (Ravens QB Jackson unanimous pick for NFL MVP. 2020). While the raise made Crunchbase, it’s not novel and represents a trend toward big investments in the future of mixed reality computing and entertainment. This trend is led by some of the biggest companies in the world with companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Snap, and Epic Games working intensely behind the scenes to become a dominant figure in this new emerging world. As evidence, Facebook, the owner of Oculus, released a figure to better understand how important XR is to the future of the company. In 2020, the $913.65B company said it was deeply embedded in XR, with 20% of the company or 10,000+ employees working in Facebook’s RealityLabs (Byford, 2021); one can imagine with hefty competition, that number could be significantly larger at the time of this writing.

Strategic Information Systems for Any Football Program

?Like major automotive companies building supercars and race carts for competition, the big tech, and innovations trickle down from the very top. When programs like the 49ers and Minnesota Vikings spend big on the newest tech innovations, they build a market and help bring down research and development costs for future iterations and new entrants into the VR space. These professional teams also invest heavily in venture and academic projects as well, as is the case with StatusPro. Sports Scientists can utilize these techniques and learnings within their collegiate organization as well as partnerships with local Public and Private High Schools.

Virtual Reality allows for teams to engage with content and plays by removing the physical and prohibitive variables around practice and training. One example given on the STriVR website details the ways players can enter the play virtually and view the play not only from the playbook drawing but at the field level, even interacting with other players learning the same content, (Virtual Reality Sports Training | Use Cases.2018 ).

A Competitive Necessities for Football Programs?

Eon Reality, and their subsidiary EON Sports, have industry-leading and industry-building technology. The question is whether the company’s EON Sports product was able to change the industry as a pioneer. With a bit of research, to my surprise, there wasn’t much news following their very public partnerships in 2015. Then, in 2018, the subsidiary was spun off and acquired by WIN Reality which appears to be very much in the shadows regarding funding and what players may be behind the operation. The company received seed funding of an unknown amount from Ben Lamm of Hypergiant (an enterprise AI integrations firm),?(WIN Reality - Funding, Financials, Valuation & Investors.2021). The company also seems to focus primarily on baseball as their key product offering, though EON Reality appears to retain its NFL and board sports contracts, (EON Reality: They Are Virtually Here. 2012). While this may be the appearance, a bit of digging has revealed that the company failed to repay a $2.2M loan in 2018 and went into voluntary liquidation, (Tech firm lent ￡4m by GMCA goes into liquidation. 2020)

??While news of STriVR and EON Sports made headlines in 2015 in the realm of NFL virtualization, both companies have both expanded far beyond professional sports but also diversified into Enterprise engagements. STriVR’s largest contract to date has been Walmart to improve logistics and employee safety, (Our founding story: From sports to enterprise. ). The company still lists involvement in Sports, but as a $51M Series B-funded company with a staff of 210, the company potentially has enough runway to functionally invest engagement in numerous enterprise endeavors, (STRIVR - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding.2021).

??The reality is this: we may not know how much of a competitive advantage these programs offer due to the secrecy and competitive nature of professional sports. Every team, every player, and every sport strives to achieve a competitive advantage; this may be one secret that will be disclosed in the pages of sporting history books.?