As I child, I remember my parents taking me to Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, a museum designed to make science fun and accessible for young people. It had everything from a two-story tall replica of a human heart to an original Wright Brothers Model B airplane from 1911. But the thing that amazed me most at the time was a virtual reality soccer game tucked away in a small sports-centric exhibit on the third floor of the building.
The way it worked was that users wore special gloves and stood in front of a large green wall, facing a camera and a monitor. A game operator would hit a large green button, and suddenly the player’s image would appear on the screen in front of them, and the green wall transformed into a soccer goal with a crowd of screaming fans behind it. On the monitor, balls would rapidly begin to fly toward the net, and the player, a virtual goalie, would have to leap from one end of the green wall to the other in order to keep the balls out of the goal.
I remember wondering at the time if this crude game was actually making me a better goalie. And while my youth soccer teammates probably would have attested that my goalie skills were already hopeless, my intuition had some merit. Today, virtual reality is used by professional and collegiate teams across the country to allow their players to train without ideal weather conditions, a field, or even teammates.
Currently, at least a half a dozen NFL clubs utilize virtual reality technology in their training, using headsets designed by StriVR Labs that put players in fully immersive, game-like atmospheres. Thirteen collegiate football teams, most notably the Stanford University Cardinals, have caught on as well. And this fall, the Washington Wizards, Capitals, and Mystics became the first teams in their respective leagues to utilize the technology as well.
Using virtual reality software, coaches can work with their video staffs to turn raw footage of set plays into 3-D models that can be edited and replayed from the perspective of any player on the floor, as opposed to just from a single, fixed angle. While still in its infancy as a tool for athletes, this groundbreaking technology has the potential to entirely transform how we think about sports training.
The Wizards, for example, have already begun to use it in order to get their young players up to speed, not only by offering them a virtual copy of the team’s playbook, but also by allowing them to feel what it’s like to play on the court alongside John Wall or to be the ballhandler in a pick-and-roll with Marcin Gortat. And beyond the benefits virtual reality can provide as a tool to simulate gameplay, there is also a wealth of research that supports the theory that mere visualization of success can have powerful effects.
According to research conducted by the University of Chicago, participants were able to improve their free-throw shooting by 23 percent simply by visualizing proper form for one month, and another study published by Stanford University concluded that using virtual reality technology is roughly 25 percent more effective than watching 2-D game film. In the past, coaches often told players to go home after practice, close their eyes, and imagine themselves making plays in a specific game scenario. Now with VR, players can feel what it’s like to properly execute new plays and schemes in a far more tangible way.
With teams looking to gain whatever edge they can over their opponents, some have begun to test virtual reality’s limits as a training tool. The Dallas Cowboys recently built a soundproof room in their practice facility solely devoted to the use of the technology. They’ve found it most useful as a way for their quarterbacks to get valuable reps in a league that actively limits the amount of time players can spend on the practice field each week. The technology gives them a way for their players to get extra reps without risking their health.
And in addition to helping their players prepare for action on Sundays, virtual reality has helped the Cowboys’ coaching staff become more effective teachers from Monday through Saturday. Head coach Jason Garrett told Fortune this summer that he often puts on the virtual reality headset himself, getting a feel for what his offense looks like through the eyes of quarterback Tony Romo, or how his linebackers are attacking certain blitz protections, or how his defensive backs are using their hands to jam receivers at the line while maintaining proper hip and foot technique.
The room the Cowboys have built also allows coaches to see exactly what their players are viewing through the headsets on high definition monitors, and gives them the ability to speak to them through a wireless speaker in their ear. In doing so, coaches are not only able to better instruct their players, but they may one day be able to more easily identify intangible strengths and weaknesses in potential draftees and free agent signees.
StriVR was founded by Stanford alum Derek Belch, a former placekicker and later a graduate assistant coach with the school’s football team. It should come as no surprise that the Cardinals are one of the chief proponents of the technology in the collegiate realm, using it not only as a form of 3-D film study, but also as a way to test out new plays and better prepare for upcoming opponents by simulating how their players react to certain schemes and feeding that into the device.
The Clemson Tigers, who ranked first in the nation thanks to a 13-0 record this year, are early adopters of the technology as well. And sophomore quarterback and Heisman Trophy second runner-up Deshaun Watson believes that a good chunk of the team’s success (and his own) can be attributed to virtual reality. Like Stanford, Clemson uses the technology to simulate not just their own playbook but those of the teams they are preparing for each week. And Watson uses the film taken in practice to examine and make alterations to his passing form. This season, he completed 69.5 percent of his passes for 3,512 yards, 30 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions, as the Tigers beat their opponents by an average margin of 18.2 points.
No coach would argue that the mental aspect of the games they teach isn’t at least as important, if not more so, than the physical side. And while virtual reality technology will never supplant good old-fashioned work on the field or in the gym, if used in conjunction with one another the two can be incredibly valuable.
