JioTV, the Mobile TV app by Reliance Jio, has acquired the exclusive digital rights for the T20 Nidahas Trophy. The app will allow users to customise their watching experience by choosing the camera angle they prefer, commentary language and audio choices.
This will be India’s first ‘interactive sports experience’, according to the company, available exclusively on JioTV.
The users can choose between five different camera angles and tailor their audio experience to match it. According to Jio, choosing to experience audio from a stump mic or opting for a stadium ambiance, will give users an ‘immersive feel’.
Commentary language options range between Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada.
Additional features include having access to cricket experts and commentators such as Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Gaurav Kapoor. There’s also an option of viewing scores and other match details on demand, rather than having to wait for them to show up on the screen. Even if the user misses a minute or two of the match owing to a bathroom break, there’s a catch-up option that will stream past content in case something important has gone by.
Adding the interactive element to viewing sports has the potential to change the way sports are consumed in India. Jio has plans of introducing AR, VR, immersive viewing and other features to the platform for sports, according to a statement by Akash Ambani, Jio Director. This use of technology challenges the existing status quo in the market.
The Nidahas Trophy cricket series is a tri-nation (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India) T20 competition that will be played in Colombo from 6 March to 18 March this year.
