Eurosport to offer VR Winter Olympics coverage

Eurosport is due to make more than 50 hours of live Virtual Reality (VR) coverage of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics available through a dedicated app.

The Winter Olympics Eurosport VR app will offer live immersive coverage of a range of sports including alpine skiing, curling, figure skating, ice hockey, short track, ski jumping, skeleton, and snowboarding.

It will also offer coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies and feature on-demand replays and daily highlights packages in VR.

The VR experience will be delivered by Intel True VR, which uses multiple cameras to create a 360-degree virtual reality environment. Viewers will be able to select their preferred viewing point from up to six camera positions.

“Discovery has set out to transform the Olympic Winter Games viewing experience, so being able to offer viewers across Europe every minute of the Games and now every angle of some of the biggest events in live VR goes a long way to delivering this promise,” said Ralph Rivera, managing director, Eurosport Digital.

“We want to do this to engage more people, on more screens, with the games than ever before, offering something new to attract younger audiences. In this way, we hope to make fans care even more about the sports they are passionate about.”

The Winter Olympics Eurosport VR app will be available across Europe – though not in Germany and Italy – on iOS and Android phones from February 1, priced at €0.99. It will also be available on Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream and Windows Mixed Reality headsets.