Basketball fans with limited funds who still want to experience March Madness action from courtside may be in luck—thanks to a new virtual reality app.
Ahead of the second weekend of March Madness games, the NCAA said it has made its new NCAA March Madness Live VR App available to download through the Oculus store for use on Samsung Gear VR devices. Fans who download the app will be able to watch six of the remaining NCAA Tournament games—including the two Final Four games and the championship final—in virtual reality for a price of $1.99 to $2.99 per game, or $7.99 for all six games. (The cheaper price tier offers only one VR vantage point, while paying more will get you additional camera angles.)
This marks the second year in a row that the NCAA has streamed March Madness games in virtual reality. Last year, the tournament offered the final three games in VR for free.
The March Madness Live VR App—which is not compatible with other VR headsets, like Vive or Oculus’ Rift—is powered by Intel’s True VR technology and it comes as part of a partnership between Intel, the NCAA, and March Madness host television networks CBS and Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting.
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The NCAA also said on Tuesday that this year marks the beginning of a multi-year corporate partnership between itself, Intel, and the tournament’s TV broadcasters.
Intel has been expanding more and more into the realms of virtual reality and live sporting events recently. The tech giant touted its 360 Replay virtual cameras during the Super Bowl earlier this year and that same replay technology will be used on CBS’ broadcasts of the Final Four and NCAA championship game next week.
Meanwhile, Intel’s partnership with the NCAA follows last fall’s acquisition of the live event VR startup VOKE, which provided the virtual reality tech for last year’s March Madness VR streams.