Augmented Reality Enhances Super Bowl LV

With in-person attendance at Super Bowl LV drastically reduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NFL, advertisers, sponsors, and broadcasters relied on a range of tech tools to bring the fans to the game and the game to the fans. Augmented Reality content featured rather prominently this year, adding a plentiful array of immersive opportunities to home viewers and the lucky few (thousands) in attendance.

Image: Verizon 5G helped bring AR to Super Bowl LV

From Yahoo’s pregame, 3D AR presentation of top Super Bowl moments setting the tone for the gameday broadcast itself by allowing users to place an AR field and players, along with annotations, in their living space and letting any household surface become a 3D gallery of the greatest Super Bowl plays of all time. Yahoo continued into gameday, teaming up with Verizon to provide an alternative to the traditional Super Bowl party: Watch Together, an app allowing fans to enjoy the game in groups no matter their locations.

AR for Adults

Snapchat proved a focal point of Super Bowl-related social media hubbub, earning over 100 million impressions from 45 million Snapchat users. iPhone 12 users were offered access to Verizon 5G SuperStadium, an extension of the official NFL mobile app that provided seven camera feeds to attendees and five viewing angles to home viewers. The Next Gen Stats features were also outfitted with AR features, adding even more AR content for fans and pointing the way for future large-scale popular events. From NBA playoffs to the forest of tech that is CES, to the porn world’s annual AVN conference: any event requiring the dissemination of information to the masses and benefitting from the further involvement of fans and viewers is likely to be outfitted with AR features.

From Pigskin to Pink Bits

There’s much more to AR than simply adding animated bathroom icons to a stadium map or replaying an action-packed moment “in” your living space. AR brings a personalization opportunity to creators and gives viewers plenty of ways to bring themselves closer to the game, awards show, or other event in question. Consider the world of porn; though it only features a small handful of truly noteworthy awards shows and industry conferences, AR-equipped guides to such events would no doubt be a hit with viewers.

Image: the Exhibition floors of AVN (L) and CES (R) with attendees.

Imagine watching AVN Awards and seeing each nominated performance unfold in 3D before your very eyes. Imagine stepping away from the standard stage view to head backstage and wander among the stars. Now, true, this could let you spot Beyonce at the Grammys but it could also show you just how lively and lusty the world of porn can be, even when the cameras aren’t rolling. Porn can soon be expected to leap from the 2D screen and become something much more malleable, personal, and intimate, thanks largely to AR.