Manchester City, who are known as the blue half of Manchester, are set to build their iconic home, the Etihad Stadium, in the metaverse. Through the venture, the club’s global fan base will be able to attend the virtual replica of the stadium, which will act as the club’s central hub throughout their future Web3 activity.
To facilitate the digital construction, the five times and current Premier League champions have partnered with Sony in a three-year deal. The collaboration will be leveraging the virtual reality, image analysis, and skeletal-tracking technologies of Sony’s subsidiary company, Hawk-Eye, who are already established leaders within the industry for in-game sports decision technology.
City Football Group chief marketing officer Nuria Tarré has spoken on the endeavour, which will come as a relief to fans, especially those of the global sort, who remain itching to get a taste of a Premier League action because of the pandemic restrictions: “The whole point we could imagine of having a Metaverse is you can recreate a game, you could watch the game live, you’re part of the action in a different way through different angles and you can fill the stadium as much as you want because it’s unlimited, it’s completely virtual”.
The Blues’ foray in Web3 follows that of the red half on Manchester, as earlier this month, their fiercest rivals Manchester United announced their lucrative sponsorship deal with Tezos blockchain.