As far as I can tell, everybody short of Pele will be watching the World Cup soccer matches in 3D. The only reason Pele won’t be putting on the silly glasses is because I expect he’ll be on hand for a lot of the matches.
If you haven’t heard, ESPN, with the love and support of wireline and satellite service providers from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and all points in between is broadcasting what is essentially the bragging rights to being the best ball kickers in the world in three dimensional glory. The event’s so exciting that Proctor & Gamble, Sony and Pixar will all experiment with 3D commercials.
Just as an aside here, I can understand and even anticipate a little bit a 3D ad from Pixar or Sony, but what’s P&G got to hawk that demands the expense of 3D equipment? Ivory Soap floating in an imaginary bathtub in your living room? Head and Shoulders cleaning up your dandruff as you wait for the soccer to resume?
I can’t see it—but then again most people can’t see it without an upgraded television, an upgraded service connection and a pair of silly glasses. And that’s the point. Most people can’t see it. My hope is that the industry, which tends to get carried away at times, doesn’t get too euphoric about the prospects of 3D TV. Yeah, it’s a neat concept; yeah, I’d love to see some balls get headed so close I can almost touch them; and yeah, the thought that this is only the start of a sports phenomenon fills me with anticipatory joy.
It also fills me with what psychiatrists describe as anticipatory anxiety because I’m afraid that looking forward to the next best thing we’ll somehow miss the best thing that’s in front of us right now: interactivity. You don’t need goofy glasses or a special TV to interact with sports programming. You just need a service provider with the wherewithal and desire to serve it up to you. Companies like ActiveVideo (there’s the commercial, you knew it was coming) will do the rest by retrieving content from the cloud and showering it down, on demand, to the consumers who want the latest statistics to go along with the game action.
It’s easy. It’s available now and, to steal a soccer phrase, it’s a GOOOOAAAAALL!!!!! for cable operators who put it in place.
World Cup soccer, I guess, is as good a place as any to start with 3D sports—allegedly there was some golf tournament this April that was in 3D, but, being a golf tournament, no one was interested enough to don the funny glasses to see the funny dressed duffers.
But I digress. Sports in 3D is great; it’s the future and it’s going to be a lot of fun—someday. Until that day, until everyone can watch different TVs with the same glasses, or no glasses, and until the price of televisions comes down to where the public will willingly switch out perfectly good and already-costly HD sets with newer costly 3D sets, sports in 3D will be a curiosity.
Sports with an interactive flair, on the other hand, is available today and to satiate a whole lot more subscribers than any 3D soccer match.
