Sports, beer and now virtual reality go hand-in-hand.
For Wednesday’s playoff game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Atlanta Hawks, some 750 sports fans got a taste of VR along with their ice cold Budweiser.
We have seen Coca-Cola recycle their box into a VR viewer and McDonald’s fold a Happy Meal into a cardboard headset. Now, the Cavaliers have partnered up with Budweiser and DODOCase to hand out a custom cardboard VR headset that doubles as a beer holder. It also works as a VR viewer to watch 360° video footage captured of the Cavaliers too.
Budweiser and the Cavaliers plan to provide a series of four videos to fans who didn’t get a chance to dive in at the arena via the official Cavaliers mobile app and Budweiser’s YouTube channel. The 360° videos will include an exclusive tour of the Cavaliers’ locker room with DJ Steph Floss, a tour of the practice facility, a court-side view of the National Anthem, and a unique look at the Cavaliers’ dunk squad, C-Town Throwdowns.
“As a company we are always looking for new ways to bring fans closer to the teams they love, and virtual reality is a big part of that,” said Lucas Herscovici, VP of Consumer Connections at Anheuser Busch.
According to the Cavaliers, they are the first in the NBA to have VR natively built into their official team mobile app and one of the only teams in the league to offer exclusive VR content. At the time of writing, the app powered by Yinzcam does not appear to have been updated with the Cavaliers produced VR content yet.
Even though the Cavaliers only introduced sports fans to the beer-holder-VR-viewer at Game 2 this week, the team plans to provide 1,500 additional devices spread across two additional games during the NBA Playoffs.
