An early February 2024 recreation between English Premier League contenders Liverpool and Arsenal was set to be a significant conflict that might assist decide the eventual league champion. Liverpool held a slim lead within the league, however an Arsenal victory would draw them inside simply two factors of overtaking their rivals within the standings.

I used to be fortunate sufficient to be watching this important match up shut and determined to brag a bit: I texted a pal, a eager EPL fan, with a pair footage of my pitch-side view. He was jealous, naturally, and in addition in all probability a bit confused at why a restricted soccer fan like myself can be flying hundreds of miles from my dwelling within the western US all the best way to the UK to look at a match between two golf equipment I’ve no connection to.

Nevertheless it was a ruse!

I wasn’t throughout the pond, even when the pics I despatched my buddy certain seemed prefer it. I used to be simply 20 minutes from my dwelling in Salt Lake Metropolis on the Cosm Expertise Heart, a facility on the College of Utah campus with a 65-foot, 8K display screen. The sport didn’t simply look actual from footage; it felt actual for big chunks of the livestream, with the huge wraparound display screen and thumping spatial audio system offering sights and sounds that actually made me really feel like I used to be within the stadium.

My foolish little trick isn’t remotely novel, whether or not at this smaller SLC venue or considered one of Cosm’s two bigger areas in Los Angeles and Dallas, the place the corporate showcases its “shared actuality” immersive experiences. Cosm reps inform me folks take pictures of the display screen on a regular basis, trying to find some method to adequately seize the sensation of being at one of many broadcasts. Like The Sphere, the wildly fashionable venue in Las Vegas, it’s a jolt to really feel such realism from digital shows—and to expertise the roar of the gang and a communal expertise that’s a far cry from merely watching the sport at dwelling.

Cosm represents a rising development in dwell sports activities experiences. The corporate made headlines when tickets for recreation 1 of the Yankees-Dodgers matchup within the 2024 World Collection at its LA facility offered out in simply seven minutes. Now the corporate is pioneering first-of-their-kind broadcasts throughout different leagues, together with the NBA, NHL, and UFC.

I not too long ago went again to the SLC facility for an additional demo. What I noticed was a window into an immersive future—in sports activities, leisure, and training—which may be accessed by way of any display screen, from a towering Cosm dome to the cellphone in your pocket.

Recreation On

Cosm’s historical past is fascinating, and it touches on the earliest days of immersive projection programs.

The corporate’s roots in immersive tech date again many years, when mentioned tech was pioneered for planetariums. The Cosm model was born in 2020 when a pacesetter in planetarium projection expertise partnered with main entities in pc graphics and digital actuality. The identify Cosm is derived from the collision of the Colosseum and the Cosmos.

Cosm proved its talents within the immersive area by way of streaming feeds for VR protection of the 2022 Olympic Winter Video games and the 2022 FIFA World Cup, then opened its first official venues with massive screens in LA and Dallas in 2024.

These venues maintain round 1,400 folks, in keeping with Cosm; the SLC venue I visited is far smaller, however has the same setup. A foyer with large LED screens welcomes guests; basic stadium concessions are available, together with seat-side supply; like an actual area, seating is break up into a number of ranges.

As soon as I obtained inside, in entrance of me was that large 8K display screen—different Cosm venues use screens with even greater resolutions, together with as much as 12K—that took up my total subject of view after which some, wrapping across the sides of the venue and up over my head. The image high quality was insane; Cosm tells me its venues are the primary true “black domes” within the business, a design which minimizes points like cross-reflection (an impact the place gentle bounces off a show’s floor in unpredictable methods, inflicting diminished readability and brightness) and permits for extremely wealthy visuals. When mixed with the usage of high-quality LED lights for the precise shows, the ensuing visuals are breathtaking.

“The system distinction is 10 occasions that of what you’ll be able to obtain with any projector,” Cosm chief operations officer Kirk Johnson tells me.

For sound, Cosm makes use of an array of audio system—16 audio system plus 4 subwoofers on the SLC facility; 38 audio system and 15 subwoofers on the LA and Dallas areas—affixed at varied factors straight behind the LED shows, that are permeable to permit sound by way of them. This permits Cosm to make noises and results sound like they’re coming from any a part of the room, even seemingly behind me.

On the sports activities facet, each the NBA (Cosm’s first league associate) and NHL experiences are superb. Cosm can put you courtside for NBA video games, each at heart court docket and on both baseline. The NHL program feels a contact extra immersive than that, even, significantly a nook view that’s technically from outdoors the glass, however really makes you’re feeling such as you’re standing on the rink itself.

UFC was one other spotlight. Cosm’s customary UFC viewing angle is a perch simply above the octagon, as when you had been sitting on a magic carpet hovering a couple of ft off the bottom; it’s a much better view than I’ve ever seen on a UFC pay-per-view. “We had a couple of fights the place there was blood on the lenses,” Cosm president and CEO Jeb Terry tells me.

There are different views for UFC occasions as effectively, together with octagon-side. Between bouts, it pans again to a large shot within the stands.

“I really feel like I’ve a seat within the crowd,” says Alon Cohen, UFC senior VP of analysis and improvement, of what it’s like to look at a match at a Cosm venue. “It offers you a distinct expertise than when you placed on a set of VR glasses. It offers you a distinct expertise than going to a Sphere the place every part’s so large.”

Whereas the Sphere comparability is unavoidable at first, Cosm doesn’t actually think about the live performance venue a competitor. They do such various things, even when each are enabled by unbelievable visible expertise. “We each imagine in an incredible human expertise powered by expertise, one thing that can wow you,” Terry says.

The non-sports experiences I sat by way of had been simply as spectacular, together with lovely views of a efficiency of Cirque du Soleil’s “O” stage present. Perhaps most spectacular, although, was Cosm’s suite of instruments that straddle between the worlds of leisure and training.

First, Cosm introduced me inside a true-life rendering of the Sistine Chapel. An engineer floated across the chapel utilizing nothing however an Xbox controller; it felt like I used to be inside a drone flying across the room.

Cosm then confirmed me a chicken’s-eye rendering of the constructing we had been sitting in and its environment; assume Google Maps, however on steroids. From there, the view zoomed out as we had been transported a number of hundred miles to the LA Cosm facility, with each inch of earth between the 2 areas mapped on the display screen. We then zoomed out even additional to see the whole nation, then the whole world, the whole galaxy, and the whole identified universe.

All of this is dropped at life on Cosm’s big display screen utilizing a software program platform referred to as Digistar. It was initially developed to energy pc graphics projections for planetariums within the Eighties and has advanced into a completely trendy digital animation platform. (The corporate that developed Digistar is among the handful that merged in 2021 to type Cosm.)

The system engineers inform me the Digistar software program precisely maps each piece of area particles over one meter in measurement, together with billions of stars and knowledge factors. Cosm people inform me youngsters love this train of flying across the universe; it left my head spinning a bit.

With a lot of Cosm’s important choices, sports activities particularly, it’s about extra than simply the graphics and the visible high quality. It’s the communal expertise. The Cosm people inform me that if the gang in an precise area is doing the wave throughout one of many livestreamed video games, followers contained in the Cosm venue will take part because it reaches their part. When a UFC struggle ends in a knockout, everybody jumps out of their seat like they might in the event that they had been truly there.

“You are feeling such as you’re on this area with folks the place that’s the suitable response,” Cohen says. “The reactions you [get in Cosm] are the reactions you get within the area.”

The precise Cosm amenities, nonetheless, are only one piece of the corporate’s total function within the immersive area. The corporate hopes to finally get its taste of content material into different amenities and onto different platforms.

Even because it has expanded into sports activities and different types of leisure, Cosm has maintained a powerful foothold in planetariums and related instructional venues. Europe’s first ever LED dome, the Prague Planetarium, integrates Cosm’s CX System backend expertise. The corporate has been concerned with amenities just like the Arizona Science Heart, the MOSI Saunders Planetarium in Tampa Bay, Florida, and the Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Cosm’s tech powers over 700 planetariums around the globe.

Amongst its most up-to-date ventures was on the Fort Price Museum of Science and Historical past, the place in December 2024 Cosm helped convert the Texas museum’s decommissioned Omni IMAX theater right into a 360-degree immersive dome, full with 12,000 LED panels. This dome hosts all types of content material, from Cosm-produced movies to numerous instructional applications for all ages; that very same zoom-out-to-the-entire-universe characteristic I noticed at my demo is a daily a part of programming, as an example.

“It doesn’t simply perform as a daily display screen. It may well type of be something and do something,” says Nikki Diller, VP of collections, interpretations, and applications for the museum. “Individuals say the sky is the restrict. I say the identified universe is the restrict, as a result of that’s a part of what our planetarium software program can do.”

Like many different entities utilizing the tech, the Fort Price Museum remains to be determining the very best methods to deliver it to new audiences. The museum and varied different Cosm companions have tried a lot of approaches, from dwell orchestra performances to trivia and karaoke.

Cosm has additionally positioned itself as a central hub within the rising immersive leisure area, one which some confer with broadly as “180 video”—a little bit of a misnomer, as a lot of Cosm’s applications take up far more than 180 levels within the subject of view. As a result of Cosm has already carried out all of the backend formatting, the platform can function a clearing home for content material outdoors the enormous dome setting.

Cosm can simply port its experiences over to VR, as an example. It may well additionally present ready-made content material for smartphone-based “immersive” experiences the place customers transfer their units round to have interaction with a 3D area.

Most of the NBA’s courtside VR recreation experiences, which place viewers proper at court docket stage with viewpoints on each baselines and on the center-court scorer’s desk, are produced by Cosm. On the fight facet, the corporate is concerned with VR and phone-based experiences efforts for each UFC and WWE alike.

New immersive Cosm amenities in Atlanta and Detroit are set to open in 2026, the latter of which is able to comprise betting-focused components, as a result of legality of sports activities playing in Michigan. Terry says the corporate hopes to announce a number of different venues within the close to future. Those that have labored with Cosm are typically extraordinarily optimistic concerning the firm’s potential.

“I’m bullish on Cosm,” Cohen tells me, earlier than evaluating the corporate’s potential to a different distinctive in-person expertise, TopGolf; the driving-range chain has over 100 areas around the globe. “That’s not less than what number of Cosms there should be. These items have a a lot smaller footprint, they match in additional locations. Any main metropolis that has a sure variety of folks ought to have a Cosm.”