How To Watch Live Football / Soccer Games in Virtual Reality
When you first watch a movie on a VR Big Screen, your first thought will likely be, “Holy cow, I wonder if I can watch Football (or soccer for Americans) like this?”
And the answer is Yes! It’s possible to watch EPL and MLS games in VR; however, it’s not necessarily easy. Here are the ways I’ve found to make it work.
Try The ESPN+ App
Oculus has an ESPN+ app (with decent ratings) that shows some live games. You’ll need cable or a login to get access. You’ll also need your preferred content to be playing on ESPN. But if you have all those things, it’s a good option for watching the game on a big screen VR screen.
Remote Desktop Into Your PC / Mac
I wrote an entire article about writing code while in VR by using the Immersed app to remote desktop into your computer.
The process for watching Football (or American Soccer) games is effectively the same. Any game you can pull up on your computer via a web browser becomes accessible in virtual reality (on as big a screen as you like). Heck, an app like Immersed even lets you invite friends to hang out in your private room.
Here’s what that looked like when I did it for an American football game (Don’t worry I’ll show you how to do the same for the Premiere League, La Liga, Serie A, MLS, etc.).
So the real question becomes, “how do you get access to football / soccer games on your computer.” Here are a handful of options that will actually work (though most aren’t free).
- Streaming Services: Peacock TV, fubo.tv, YouTube TV, Sling TV , and ESPN+ might be airing the game that you want to see.
- Streaming by Country: BT Sports (UK), Sky Sports (UK), DAZN (Canada), Optus (AU), There should be a PeacockTV analog for your country if you look hard enough.
You’ll have to figure out how to stream whatever league you want to watch to make this work if you want to watch something other than premier league. Keep in mind that you can use a VPN to switch countries if needed using this tactic. Since a VPN is easily installable on your computer and you’re simply remoting into it through your headset.
It’s not your own personal private sports bar just yet, but we’re certainly getting there.
Try The DeoVR, Oculus, or Firefox VR Web Browser
It’s possible that streaming through your web browser will be easier than doing it through a remote desktop application on your headset. The problem with this option is that your VR web browser may have compatibility issues with the streaming service you’re trying to use. But, I recommend trying it out.
Also, DeoVR is the best VR web browser for watching videos. I’d start by downloading that browser and giving it a try.
Conclusion: Is Watching Football / Soccer on The Quest 2 Worth It?
For me, the resolution on the Quest 2 isn’t high enough for me to prefer watching a game in VR over a traditional television just yet. That said, higher resolution VR headsets are dropping in 2022, which promises to fix that problem.
I’m also disappointed that there isn’t a lot of 360 degree content out there yet like there is for some other sports. To get an idea of what this looks like 360, watch the following YouTube video with your Quest 2. It’s a cool experience.
So we’re not quite there yet. That said, virtual reality will get crazy over the next 5 years. I fully believe this might be a better way of watching the match in 5 years time.