Apple CEO Cook and NBA Commissioner Silver talk Vision Pro: ‘This Changes Everything’
With the NBA app on Apple Vision Pro, basketball fans can stream up to five broadcasts live or on demand with Multiview, keep an eye on real-time player and team stats, and effortlessly glance at other games and scores. MLB immerses users in a ballpark with a view from home plate and stats from each pitch. Red Bull TV displays 3D maps of races paired with high-quality video and immersive environments. And soccer fans can access MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app, home of Major League Soccer. With compatible apps from top cable services — including Charter Spectrum, Comcast Xfinity, Cox Contour, Sling TV, and Verizon Fios — and sports broadcasters — including ESPN, CBS, Paramount+, NBC, NBC Sports, Peacock, FOX Sports, and the UFC — Vision Pro users always have the best seat in the house.
Tim Cook interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter:
Apple CEO [Tim Cook] was huddled over an iMac in the NBA’s league headquarters in New York alongside NBA commissioner Adam Silver, flanked by a wall of regulation basketballs. On the white table in front of them was the computer, and a piece of hardware that Cook says “really changes everything.”
Apple Vision Pro.
The NBA had been hard at work on a dedicated app for the device, and two of its developers, senior software engineers Lauren Marshall and Matthew Parrott, were walking Cook and Silver through its features, like the ability to watch up to five games at once, the possibilities of immersive video, and, as Cook inquired about, real-time stats that can be displayed next to the live games.
Cook and Silver, in a joint interview shortly after the demo, were effusive about the potential of the device to transform not just how people watch sports, but all entertainment content.
“I think the fan wants to be a part of the game and a part of the action, and there’s nothing like being in Vision Pro and feeling like you’re on the court,” Cook says. “It’s not that you have a courtside seat. It’s so much better than that.”
“As Tim said it this is in many ways better than sitting courtside,” Silver added. “It can take you anywhere on the floor. It can give you the perspective of a player, it can bring you places that you could never otherwise go and absorb it.”
