NFL Refs Using VR Platform to Prepare for New Season
As the summer sadly winds down and we can seemingly already feel the cold fall air that’s around the corner, we can at least take solace in the fact that along with the change of colours and Thanksgiving comes one other fall tradition: football.
Whether you love it or hate it, there’s no denying the cultural and social impact the NFL carries across North America. And as football fans around the globe begin to ready themselves for another season, it’s almost shocking to think that exhibition games have already begun.
For some, the NFL exhibition schedule is a waste of time that could be better spent playing games that actually count, but for those involved in the business of football, these exhibition games give a rare taste of the speed of the game. Whether it’s a rookie trying to break in to the league, or an official trying to gain much needed experience, the fact is that outside of these handful of games, it’s not exactly possible to recreate what it’s like being on an NFL field.
Or at least, that used to be the case before STRIVR came along.
The VR training and content company, created by Stanford kicker Derek Belch, had already made a deal with seven NFL teams to allow for virtual reality training of their players. This alone would make them trailblazers in the world of professional athletics but, considering the complexity of the sport, likely ahead of the pack when it comes to other VR training companies as well. And as if training players was not enough, they’ve recently gone league wide with a program that allows for VR training of NFL officials, netting not only more accolades but equity investment from the NFL itself.
When officials put on a headset within the STRIVR platform, they’re given a 360-degree, first-person view of game action as they would see it from their assigned positions on the field. The virtual reality experience provided by STRIVR gives them live, full-speed plays as if they’re actually on the field, giving the officials much needed repetitions that they previously were unable to experience outside of a pressure filled NFL game.
While STRIVR has made its training platform available to those outside of the sports world – Walmart made a deal with the company in June to train and educate its 150,000 employees – the company has no plans to move away from athletics, especially considering the kinds of success it has already seen within football.
Players have put in thousands of hours on the platform to date, seeing more than 50,000 different plays, all of which would seem to add legitimacy to STRIVR’s claims that its software has improved player’s reaction time and, much like it hopes to do with the NFL’s officials, has improved player’s decision-making processes while in the midst of high-stress situations.
If you’re a fan of the NFL all of this must make you hope for two things. That it makes the league’s officiating even better and that all of STRIVR’s tech eventually lands to the consumer, so that every Monday morning quarterback can get a feel of what it must actually be like on an NFL field.