Cosm’s shared reality dome concept for watching live sports broadcasts.
Courtesy: Cosm Locations
Warner Bros. Discovery and Cosm, a private company specializing in immersive technology, are poised to make “shared reality” a reality for sports fans.
Cosm plans to open two locations – a 65,000-square-foot building in Los Angeles and a 70,000-square-foot building in Dallas – with seating areas for approximately 800 fans who can watch select live sports broadcast on TNT in an immersive experience that offers a is a reflection of being at the game.
The Cosm locations will feature domes with 360-degree, 87-foot diameter 8K LED screens similar in concept to James Dolan’s Las Vegas Sphere, which debuted in September. But unlike the Areaspecializing in live entertainment, the Cosm locations will focus on repurposing broadcast content to provide consumers with immersive experiences, such as courtside views at NBA games or a rinkside corner for hockey games.
No headsets or glasses are needed to watch the matches. Cosm uses multi-camera productions to simulate the experience of sitting on the court at a basketball game or on the field during a football game. The experience won’t be 3D, but the dome view effect will make viewers feel like they’re in the arena.
“We believe in the same kind of idea of using amazing technology to give the human experience something they’ve never seen before,” Cosm CEO Jeb Terry said in an exclusive CNBC interview. “With the Sphere it’s big, huge. Ours is more of a smaller format and really focused on live sports and live programming – like you’re absolutely there.”
The Sphere can be seen opening night with the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live concert at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas on September 29, 2023.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Cosm locations will carry select games on TNT, including select National Basketball Association regular season and playoff games, the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Playoffs and select U.S. men’s and women’s soccer team games.
The Cosm Los Angeles location will open in spring 2024. The Dallas location will open later next year. Each building can accommodate approximately 2,000 people. There will be standing areas that resemble modern sports bars, with game broadcasts of all different sports attached to the dome portion of the building. There will be lounges and other seating areas. Fans who purchase a seat, which will be spread out instead of theater-style, will have access to concessions and hear TNT’s broadcast.
The history of Cosmo
Cosm was founded in 2020 by private equity firm Mirasol Capital, specializing in real estate, technology and entertainment, through a series of acquisitions of spatial computing, engineering and immersive video production companies. Mirasol’s founder is Steve Winn, a Dallas-based billionaire who sold his software company RealPage to Thoma Bravo in 2021 for $10.2 billion, including debt.
Terry, the CEO of Cosm, is a former National Football League offensive lineman for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Fox Sports executive. He is also director at Mirasol. Cosm has more than 250 employees and its headquarters are located in Los Angeles.
Thanks to an acquisition of Evans & Sutherland, Cosm’s technology is the driving force behind more than 700 planetariums around the world. The collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery is a revenue-sharing arrangement and could eventually extend into other non-scripted entertainment content such as concerts. There’s even an opportunity to use the technology to improve scripted shows, says Raphael Poplock, Bleacher Report’s senior vice president of business development and strategic partnerships.
“It has potential for expansion far beyond the sports world,” said Poplock, who helped create the partnership for Warner Bros. Discovery. “When I was there, I was like, I have this for the NBA, the NHL, for football, for our entire sports portfolio. But that was also when ‘The Last of Us’ did it on HBO and Max. And I thought, gee, if you did a season two premiere and really had an immersive, post-apocalyptic world, that could look pretty badass.”
Terry’s first priority is to use the TNT Sports deal as a template to get more live sports rights into the venues for fans. He also plans to build more domes in cities across the US
“This deal with Turner Sports is the first of its kind, but it won’t be the last,” Terry said.
WATCH: Sphere Entertainment shares rise as U2 performs.
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