The haka through a headset: I have seen the future
The latest virtual reality tech has the potential to be a wonderful, revolutionary way to watch sport, writes Alan Tyers
If boffins could implement this in live sports coverage, it could be a game-changer
The future of televised sport arrived yesterday morning at Telegraph Towers, and it arrived in a snazzy black case, the sort of thing that a spy might leave in a taxi.
Inside, a portable telephone and a pair of goggles. It was but a mere several hours of teethgrinding work to pair the phone with the headset, turn it all on, connect to the Sky Virtual Reality app, and then begin watching a new documentary called Finding Haka.
Once the initial migraine and motion sickness had subsided, it was all rather jolly.
And thus I am writing to you from The Future. We do things differently here, although the haka remains enduringly popular in New Zealand.
The 20-minute film is a documentary about a young Maori fellow who loves rugby but has lost his way in life, a country lad in the city, not doing as well in his sporting career as he would like. Fortunately, some older, wiser Maori chaps help him to realise that what he needs is a bit less mucking about and a bit more haka.
And thus he begins a journey to understand more about the haka, its role in connecting a Maori to his ancestors, focusing the mind and generally aiding in the playing of rugby union, which, as everyone knows, these New Zealand guys absolutely cannot get enough of.
There is also a striking sequence when we are transported, via the magic of acting, back into the distant past to learn about how that tribal leader bloke invented the Ka Mate haka after successfully fleeing from some murderous rivals. And what better reason to come up with a celebratory dance is there than that?
It does seem these days that New Zealand’s major exports are lamb, gooseberry-noted sauvignon blancs and documentary features about the history and spiritual role of the haka, so the average viewer might not feel that he or she is in uncharted territory. But it is certainly a new way to travel there.
You can move the gizmo around while you’re watching it and see things from all sorts of different angles. Yes, it’s still some guys banging on about the haka, but here in The Future our minds and consciousness have been expanded to such an extent that it’s not hard to conceive of this being a wonderful, revolutionary way to watch sport.
If boffins and eggheads could implement this in live sports coverage, this could, beyond question, be a game-changer. It would be like having Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville in your own living room. Hell, it would be like being Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville your own self. The viewer could see where the runners were off the ball, where the defence were, what’s going on all around the pitch, pause it, flip it around.
Clearly the technology is still in its infancy, and the hard-to-impress might just shrug their shoulders and say, “meh, this is Jaws III”. And yes, the “content” is currently not as exciting as the potential, unless you are a haka documentary completist. But well worth a look, I thought.
Ta-ta for now from The Future and, one word of advice: do not attempt to walk around your living room while wearing the thing. Even in The Future, you can still do yourself a nasty mischief tripping over a coffee table.
See Sky Oculus VR app on their website and on the App Store