Accedo, Qualcomm & HBS form XR in sports alliance | News

Accedo, Qualcoom and Host Broadcast Services are collaborating with the aim of accelerating the commercialization of comprehensive reality sports services.

The trio will look to bridge the gap between the sports and XR industries, leveraging Accedo’s experience in video UX, distribution and monetization, Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon-powered broadcast production company HBS.

In addition to commercialization, the project aims to accelerate knowledge acquisition, technological progress and time-to-market for XR sports services. Overall, it hopes to provide the industry with an end-to-end framework that includes immersive video production and distribution, system architecture definition, data and monetization frameworks, user testing, and technology and business model consulting elements.

It will connect sports, video, telecoms, infrastructure and hardware companies to do this, and let them work together on innovation projects.

Michael Lantz, CEO of Accedo, said: “We believe XR will become an important platform for content distribution and user engagement and we want to connect industry stakeholders to collaborate and innovate. The Alliance network will enable industries to discover industrial demand across different geographic regions and shed light on the pipeline of upcoming XR solutions, empowering sports rights owners and holders to make data-driven decisions.”

Patrick Costello, senior director of product management at Qualcomm, Technologies, Inc., added: “We are entering a new era of spatial computing. We believe XR experiences will revolutionize the way fans interact with sports and we are already seeing an increase in the adoption of immersive entertainment experiences thanks to the emergence of new XR devices and increased investment by OEMs for rights to sports content. The XR Sports Alliance will bring together key players in the sports entertainment value chain and jointly advance the ecosystem to deliver breakthrough, immersive sports experiences.”

Sylvain Lebreton, head of digital services at HBS, commented: “This program aims to be a game-changer for the sports industry and help drive innovation. We are working with industry leaders in every part of the XR and sports broadcast ecosystem, which we are confident will ultimately accelerate the development and deployment of commercial XR sports services.”