STRIVR is a company setup by Derek Belch, a former Stanford kicker and Graduate Assistant Coach and Jeremy Bailenson, head of Stanford’s world-renowned Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL). It is providing athletes and players across several sports a capability to train virtually in the real sporting condition. However, their focus for now is American Football and they are already working with 14 teams including six NFL teams like Arizona Cardinals and the Dallas Cowboys.
The STRIVR concept took several years to materialize as initially, the technology was not ready and later the duo spent developing and perfecting a way to film practice in 360-degree. As of now, the company records 360-degree view of the field using GoPro cameras stationed in the appropriate position.
Once recorded, the player while being in the classroom, can view the event from inside the VR headset as if the event is live again giving him 360 view of the action. For example, a player can first view how he threw the ball to his team-mate on one side of the pitch and then re-play to look at other passing opportunities he missed.
Get a glimpse of it, by watching the video below and use your mouse to click and drag the scene all around.
While the company have been successful in American sports, we are yet to find them in other countries and sporting events like European Football, Olympics and Formula One. Furthermore, the company is yet to combine the training to statistics collected from wearable devices to provide a more comprehensive training to the athletes.
Seems like a massive opportunity for someone to step into. While the technology developers further, we wait to find more about it.