It’s become something of a joke now in tech circles to utter the phrase, “Do you remember the Metaverse?” Today, as everyone seems to be focused on AI, it feels easy to forget that it was just a few years ago that Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of Facebook Inc. to Meta and told the world that the social media giant would be a Metaverse-first company. Tens of billions of dollars were spent – wasted, maybe – on Meta’s Reality Labs, and we got nowhere near the concept of living, working and playing in the Metaverse.
Of course, while living and working in the Metaverse seems somewhat silly now, especially given that Meta has quietly retracted the program, “playing” is a different matter. Sales of VR/AR headsets are steady, if not spectacular, and there’s plenty of hope that VR gaming really takes off. But what about the world of sports and VR? Might that be a fruitful partnership?
Some Metaverse Projects Have Been Non-Starters
The answer, rather noncommittally, is that it depends. Around 2022, near the height of Metaverse fever, Manchester City, one of the world’s biggest soccer clubs, announced it was building a virtual Metaverse stadium, the Virtual Etihad, in partnership with Sony. It opened its (virtual doors) in 2025, and, well, we have barely heard anything about it since. It just doesn’t feel right for most soccer fans, nor does it actually deliver the gameday experience. It is, in short, a bust.
But is there hope for the VR sports experience? We might say that one sport is particularly suited to it – baseball. The pace of baseball, the game mechanics, and the fan interest in statistics like pitch speeds, etc., all sit well with VR and AR. Indeed, it is no surprise that one of the best apps for the Apple Vision Pro is the MLB app, which works in tandem with the MLB.TV streaming app.
Baseball Seems Uniquely Suited to AR Viewing
The MLB experience on Vision Pro felt like one of the main success stories of that Apple product, which, let’s be honest, hasn’t really hit the home run that Apple hoped it would. The ability to take different perspectives – behind the pitcher, a view of the outfield – and get instant access to play-by-play stats, which are useful for baseball betting and fantasy sports, really feels comfortable on Vision Pro.
The new MLB 2026 season will get underway soon, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out. As mentioned, the pacing of baseball makes it well-suited to VR in ways that soccer, basketball, and football aren’t. With soccer, for instance, you don’t need or want to know the velocity of a free-kick, not to mention the fact that this is hard to measure in real-time, but seeing the pitcher’s velocity rise and fall is something that all baseball fans know about – it matters in the context of the game.
VR/AR tend to struggle when the best way to engage with a sport is to sit on a couch with friends or be at the stadium. Now, we are not saying that baseball isn’t suited to those things – it is – but it can be considered a “second screen” sport, i.e., one where fans can remain engaged while not entirely focused on the action. That’s all about the pacing, and it is what makes it suitable for VR/AR.
That said, there are considerations to make. For a start, VR/AR hardware designers have not yet created a scenario where the majority of sports fans believe that having a computer strapped to their face is a more comfortable viewing experience than simply watching the game. Moreover, they haven’t yet solved the removal of the social experience that occurs when wearing VR/AR headwear. It’s part and parcel of being a sports fan to engage with others.
Nevertheless, in a stats-heavy sport that has pacing to lend itself to a glance away from the main action, baseball might show us the way in the VR/AR sports experience. It’s not quite the Metaverse – nor should it be – but it is, or at least it can be, an augmented reality making the viewing experience superior.
Hi! I’m Bryan, and I’m a passionate & expert writer with more than five years of experience. I have written about various topics such as product descriptions, travel, cryptocurrencies, and online gaming in my writing journey.
