Are you upset your team isn’t playing in a championship game this weekend and need a reason to watch? Well here’s a reason to watch at least one game on Saturday: Referees will wear hats with built-in GoPros during this weekend’s NCAA Football Big Ten Championship Game between Penn State and Wisconsin.
The project is part of a deal between FOX Sports Lab and GoPro to offer new viewing experiences to viewers. It’s not yet clear if the hats will just have a store-bought GoPro attached, or be a custom-built wearable with an integrated camera and wireless system.
Footage captured from the camera-hats will be shown on FOX during the broadcast, as well as made available online and on FOX Sports’ social media accounts.
Check out the clip below to see footage from a trial run during the Wisconsin-Minnesota Big Ten game last weekend:
It’s pretty amazing. The hat-cameras are able to provide a close up view that we’ve never seen before during football games — it almost makes you feel like you’re playing a game of Madden on Xbox.
For now this seems like a one-time thing, but if you watched the footage above it’s clear this could be the future of watching professional sports. These cameras could also help catch missed calls during challenges and replays in football, which is currently a hot topic in the NFL.
This isn’t the first time GoPro has worked with major sports leagues. GoPro also has a partnership with the NHL to capture footage during games and practices, but that footage was shown after the game — not live on a network.
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The Big Ten Championship Game will be on FOX at 8:17pm ET on Saturday.
