Cosm’s shared reality dome concept for viewing live sports broadcasts.
Courtesy: Cosm Venues
Warner Bros. Discovery and Cosm, a privately held company that focuses on immersive technology, are about to make “shared reality” a reality for sports fans.
Cosm plans to open two venues — a 65,000 square foot constructing in Los Angeles and a 70,000 square foot structure in Dallas — with seating areas for about 800 fans who will give you the option to watch select live sports that air on TNT in an immersive experience that mirrors being on the game.
The Cosm venues will feature domes with 360 degree, 87 foot diameter 8K LED screens which are similar in concept to James Dolan’s Las Vegas Sphere, which debuted in September. But unlike the Sphere, which focuses on live entertainment, the Cosm venues will give attention to repurposing broadcasts to give consumers immersed experiences similar to a courtside view at NBA games or a rink-side angle for hockey games.
No headsets or glasses are needed to watch the games. Cosm uses multicamera productions to simulate the experience of sitting courtside at a basketball game or pitch side at a soccer match. The experience won’t be 3D, however the effect of the dome viewing will make viewers feel as in the event that they’re in the world.
“We buy into that very same sort of notion of leveraging amazing technology to give the human experience something they’ve never seen before,” Jeb Terry, CEO at Cosm, said in an exclusive CNBC interview. “With the Sphere, it’s big, huge, grand scale. Ours is more of a smaller format and really focused on live sports and live programing — such as you’re absolutely there.”
The Sphere is seen during opening night with the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live concert on the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas on Sept. 29, 2023.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Cosm venues will feature select games on TNT within the venues, including some National Basketball Association regular season and playoff games, the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Playoffs and choose U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Soccer Team matches.
The Cosm Los Angeles venue will open within the spring of 2024. The Dallas venue will open later next 12 months. Each constructing will accommodate about 2,000 people. There will likely be standing areas similar to modern sports bars, with game broadcasts of all different sports, attached to the dome portion of the constructing. They may include lounges and other places to sit. Fans who buy a seat, which will likely be opened up somewhat than theater style, can have access to concessions and can give you the option to hear the TNT broadcast.
Cosm’s history
Cosm was founded in 2020 by private equity firm Mirasol Capital, which focuses on real estate, technology and entertainment, through a series of acquisitions of spatial computing, engineering and immersive video production firms. Mirasol’s founder is Steve Winn, a Dallas-based billionaire who sold his software company RealPage to Thoma Bravo in 2021 for $10.2 billion, including debt.
Terry, Cosm’s CEO, is a former National Football League offensive lineman for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Fox Sports executive. He’s also a managing director at Mirasol. Cosm has greater than 250 employees and is headquartered in Los Angeles.
Cosm’s technology, through an acquisition of Evans & Sutherland, powers greater than 700 planetariums world wide. The partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery is a revenue-sharing agreement and will eventually extend to other nonscripted entertainment content, similar to live shows. There’s even the potential for using the technology to enhance scripted shows, said Raphael Poplock, Bleacher Report senior vp of business development and strategic partnerships.
“It has extension potential well beyond sports,” said Poplock, who helped forge the partnership for Warner Bros. Discovery. “After I was in there, I used to be like, I got this for the NBA, the NHL, for soccer, for all of our sports portfolio. But that was also when ‘The Last of Us’ was killing it on HBO and Max. And I used to be considering, geez, in the event you did a premiere for season two and really had an immersive, post-apocalyptic world, that might look pretty badass.”
Terry’s first priority is to use the TNT Sports deal as a template to get more live sports rights into the venues for fans. He also plans to construct more domes in cities across the U.S.
“This Turner Sports deal is the primary of its kind, but it surely’s not going to be the last,” Terry said.
WATCH: Sphere Entertainment shares surge as U2 performs.
![Sphere Entertainment shares surged more than 10% on Monday — all thanks to U2](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107310830-1696353175964-1696352949502-Sphere_QT.jpg?v=1696353735&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
Don’t miss these CNBC PRO stories: