XRSpectator: Immersive, Augmented Sports Spectating

Abstract

In-stadium sports spectating delivers a unique social experience in a variety of sports. However, in contrast to broadcast delivery, it lacks the provision of real-time information augmentation, like game statistics overlaid on screen. In an earlier iteration, we developed ARSpectator, a prototypical, mobile system which can be brought to the stadium to experience both, the live sport action and situated infographics spatially augmented into the scene. In some situations it is difficult or often impossible to go to the stadium though, for instance because of limited stadium access during pandemics or when wanting to conduct controlled user studies. We address this by turning our ARSpectator system into an indirect augmented reality experience deployed to an immersive, virtual reality head-mounted display: The live stadium experience is delivered by way of a surrounding 360 video recording while maintaining and extending the provision of interactive, situated infographics. With our XRSpectator demo prototype presented here, users can have an ARSpectator experience of a rugby game in our local stadium.