Verizon Brings 3D to the NFL

Last night, NYConvergence went to the New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ., perhaps the most high-tech stadium in the NFL. Though the Giants were playing the Patriots in an exhibition game, the reason we went was not to see how they looked on the field, but to see how they looked on a 3D television, as Verizon was celebrating its broadcast of the game, which is the first football game to broadcast in 3D.

The event took place at the Verizon studio in the stadium, which itself is an open air exhibition of all things Verizon FiOS and Verizon Wireless that is accessible to football fans walking through the concourse, complete with a wall of television screens, a laptop computer bar and seating to watching a variety of 3D televisions.  At the studio, we caught up with John Bonomo, Director-Media Relations for Verizon, who told us that this broadcast (unlike the 3D Yankees game that FiOS aired earlier in the summer) was also being produced by Verizon and included a crew of 70 people to pull it off. Though he would not delve into the cost of the endeavor, he was optimistic about the future of 3D TV adoption by consumers, similar to how it once took time for people to buy HD TVs.  Moreover, last night’s 3D broadcast was as Bonomo put it  “A chance for people to recognize Verizon’s capabilities.”

We had the chance to spend some quality time watching the FiOS 3D broadcast of the game and suffice to say, live action football works very well in 3D. What we found interesting was that it was not just the players who were in 3D, but anytime a score, graphic or stat popped up, they were in 3D as well. The only downside was that after 20 minutes of watching the game, we needed a break because of wearing the glasses, which come with any 3D set and are required for viewing.  Perhaps one day the Sonys of the world will figure out how to watch a 3D broadcast without them, but overall Verizon proved last night that it wants to be at the forefront of this new technology.