This month, the Premier League will once again leverage AR to enhance its sports broadcasting for viewers at home, utilizing immersive visualizations to improve viewer engagement and retention via a smartphone application.
The Premier League is partnering with Doppelgänger, a strategic and creative metaverse agency, to develop and deliver its bespoke AR visuals. Moreover, the promotion will leverage location-based AR visuals in the various Summer Series US host cities to combine the real and virtual world for users to enjoy.
To secure the experience, Doggelgänger worked with AR developer Rose Digital to develop the interactive experience. Moreover, the development team leveraged Niantic’s 8thWall AR engine – the base engine for various mobile immersive experiences – to enable location-accurate visuals.
Previously, Niantic has worked with countless brands to reimagine marketing campaigns, and, most notably, the engine’s parent company designed the popular Pokemon: Go application, so they boast massive experience in the space.
Max Proctor, a Managing Director at Doppelgänger, said that “AR and broader metaverse activations are helping the world’s biggest brands to build loyalty and engagement with their audiences by connecting with them in new and exciting ways.”
Proctor continued:
The Premier League has always been at the forefront of innovation and we’re delighted to work with them to help promote the Summer Series. We’re proud to play a small part in helping fans in the US to experience the magic of the Premier League like never before.
The immersive promotional event will take place between July 22-30, and the service will allow users to collect up to 20 trophies that represent six Premier League clubs, including Aston Villa, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion, Chelsea, Fulham, and Newcastle United – the teams will play in Premier League Summer Series later this month in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando, New Jersey, and Maryland, where the location-based AR experiences will exist.
Using AR to Reach New International Audiences
Alexandra Willis, the Director of Digital Media and Audience Development at the Premier League, noted that the AR experience comes as the sporting association steps foot in the USA, allowing the group to connect to a new fanbase.
Willis also added:
We have hugely enjoyed working with Doppelgänger to create this Augmented Reality mobile experience to extend this landmark moment beyond the stadium. We hope to enable even more people to celebrate with us across the USA this summer, and at the same time, learn about how fans want to engage with and interact with this innovative technology.
The service leverages gamification techniques that allow users to compete to get the most trophies and place themselves on a leaderboard. Additionally, the immersive event gives players access to a navigation map, allowing users to explore AR spaces to find trophies and collect prizes.
Winning players could win a variety of awards, including VIP tickets for Premier League Summer Series matches, signed shirts and Premier League Summer Series merchandise. The more trophies a user collects leads to a higher chance of winning high-value prizes.
The experience is live today via the Premier League’s website, ready for the event later this month. Additionally, the location-based service is exclusive to viewers in League host cities.
The Premier League is also debuting a lite experience for US customers in other states whereby fans can place an AR Premier League Trophy anywhere in their real-world location and take immersive selfies with the visualization.
Premier League’s History with Immersive Broadcasting
In August 2022, the Premier League worked with AR hardware and software partners to secure immersive broadcasting events. The sporting group partnered with Xreal – then Nreal – and BT Sports to broadcast the Premier League event with added AR visualizations and 5G connectivity to keep viewers engaged.
The partnership utilized Xreal’s Air and Light brand of smart glasses designed for immersive media streaming. The products allow users to watch media content on virtual screens up to 106 inches in size.
Viewers at home wearing Xreal smart glasses can see live RT3D AR player and game metrics. Also, viewers can navigate immersive streaming applications and interact with AR assets using their tethered smartphone as an input device.
