Sports in high definition TV is so 2004.What if someone said you could see Chad Ocho Cinco kiss the star in Texas Stadium up-close and personal without actually being at the stadium? In a comfortable reclining chair? In air-conditioned comfort? And for a much lower ticket price? (you still have to buy your own popcorn, though).
A business deal announced this week could be the game-changer in making sporting events viewable in 3D HD, made possible by people responsible from everything from the 11-time Oscar winning film “Titanic” to “Beverly Hills Chihuahua.”
Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, a consortium of three major theater chains — AMC Entertainment Inc., Cinemark and Regal Entertainment Group (all have theaters in San Antonio) — struck a deal with five Hollywood studios on Wednesday (Oct. 1) for those studios to help pay for new digital projection systems in its theaters across the United States and Canada.
The five studios — The Walt Disney Co., Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. — will subsidize the nearly $1 billion-plus rollout.
Of the 37,000 screens in North America, 5,000 have digital projectors with only 1,264 equipped for 3D presentations. This deal will make 20,000 screens digital ready at a cost of $70,000-per screen with the upgrades beginning in early 2009. DCIP estimates it could take 3 to 3 ½ years to complete the conversion.
That digital equipment is needed to make 3D HD possible. The Regal chain uses filters and equipment from a company called RealD that creates separate images for the left and right eyes to achieve the 3D effect. Audiences then have to use special glasses to see the 3D image.
The movie studios are banking on 3D as the next big thing with at least 20 3D movies scheduled for release from now until 2010. James Cameron, who hasn’t made a commercial movie since 1997’s “Titanic,” is a leader in the 3D cinema movement.
Cameron’s newest movie, a 3D sci-fi/action film called “Avatar” is due in December 2009. Cameron has spend nearly a decade working on “Avatar,” even creating his own 3D cameras, because he wanted the technology to be advanced enough to fully create his vision. Hollywood’s hope is that “Avatar” could do to 3D what his “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” did to advance the use of CGI.
If that happens, the floodgates for 3D HD content could break wide open.
Now, how does this translate to the world of sports?
Think NBA.
Since February 2007, the NBA has experimented using 3D cameras in three games (the Feb. 18, 2007 All-Star Game in Las Vegas; the June 10, 2007 NBA Finals Game 3 of the Spurs-Cleveland Cavaliers series and the March 25, 2008 Los Angeles Clippers-Dallas game), receiving nothing less than enthusiastic response from those who saw the games, according to newspaper reports about those test games.
And RealD was the equipment used to help project the game’s images to the test audiences. In the United States, RealD is responsible for 97 percent of the technology used to convert digital 2D images into 3D ones.
The Las Vegas Review Journal wrote this about the 2007 All-Star Game test “It wasn’t television, and it certainly wasn’t movielike. It really felt like we were sitting about 20 rows up from the corner of the court. People around us were joking about asking folks to sit ‘down in front’ when the actual arena fans stood up.”
With the NBA still working out the kinks in the technical production of the 3D game, the digital theater upgrades greatly solves the problem of distribution. Home TVs that broadcast 3D HD images are coming but broadcasters aren’t rushing this technology anytime soon. Also, the initial cost of a 3D HD TV set would be way too prohibitive for the average person to afford.
NBA Entertainment executives have been quoted as saying with 3D they want to create the in-arena experience. Talking to the website TVTechnology.com, Mike Rokosa, vice president of engineering for NBA Entertainment, said “We’re actively chasing 3D as a technology — it’s something we have a lot of high hopes for.”
Rokosa added “Anytime the action comes to or from the camera and it’s unrehearsed it’s spectacular” but he wouldn’t state specifics about the league’s 3D HD plans.
If it hasn’t come up already, 3D HD NBA games could be piped into movie theaters via satellite or by fiber optic lines. If fans couldn’t get into a sold-out game or can’t afford to go to a game, a theater ticket could conceivably be less that one at the venue.
Currently, tickets for 3D HD shows cost more than a ticket for a 2D screening but the financial reward could be sizable. Case in point: the February 2008 release of the “Hannah Montana” concert movie.
The 3D concert movie only was shown on 683 screens and was that weekend’s No. 1 film with $29 million in ticket sales in just three days, averaging $42,460 per screen. Tickets prices were higher but the demand was there that showed the potential power for 3D screenings.
In comparison, the other four movies (all 2D movies) in the top five that weekend all earned $17-20 million less than “Hannah Montana,” each on a minimum of 2,600 screens averaging at least $3,300 a screening.
None of these movies had anything to do about sports, but the idea of and the potential financial windfall of 3D HD sporting events is too great to be easily dismissed.
It would also provide a new revenue stream for the NBA, not only from off-site ticket sales, potential partnerships with the theater chains involved and from commercials. The three NBA 3D HD tests were announcer and commercial free but new versions of ads could be produced only for movie auditoriums only, using — to a degree —an new advertising model similar to the ones TV networks use for their streaming content.
Food for thought — four of the five studios financing the upgrade all have connections to TV networks. The Walt Disney Co. owns ESPN, 20th Century Fox is the sister company to the FOX Network, Universal Pictures is owned by NBC/Universal and Paramount Pictures has a TV division closely linked with CBS.
ESPN has their tentacles linked to just about every major pro and college sports properties, NBC has the Olympics and NFL Sunday Night Football, FOX has MLB, NASCAR and NFL rights and CBS has the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament as one of their crown jewels. Using corporate synergy, what kind of images, and additional profits, could be made if these sports wee shown on the 3D big screen?
The NBA has been ahead of the curve of the NFL, NHL and Major League Baseball in forging their game and brand into previous unchartered areas. From expanding into international markets, the Internet, digital technologies and creating its’ own TV channel, the others eventually followed because the NBA made it work.
The NBA has that leadership model in front of it once more with this digital cinema upgrade. If the league creates a workable — and profitable — 3D HD business model, it will be only a matter of time until others could be influenced by their actions.
By 2011, your Saturday night entertainment choice could be an ESPN college football showdown or World Series game could standing next to “Saw VIII” or “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3” on a marquee at a theater near you.
