For the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Chinese Online Platforms Are Experimenting With Metaverse.

Chinese online platforms are jumping on the World Cup bandwagon to attract the country’s massive sports fan base by providing a “metaverse-like” viewing experience made possible by 5G and virtual reality (VR).

Analysts have noted that the initiatives will assist the internet giants to secure a rising amount of traffic during the sporting event, but that the most important thing is that widespread adoption of the new technology will allow them to perfect their product offers.

Migu, a China Mobile subsidiary and a major player in the Chinese streaming market, and Douyin (the Chinese equivalent of TikTok) are two other major players. As part of a digital coverage partnership with state-owned broadcaster China Media Group, the two streaming platforms have been granted sub-licensed rights to air live and on-demand coverage of the Qatar World Cup (CMG).

The media has reported that Migu and Douyin paid a “sky-high” fee for the broadcasting rights. Migu China Mobile and Douyin were two of just six mainland Chinese channels given permission to air the World Cup.

Migu chief content officer Gan Yuqing announced in July that the business would webcast the competition using technology like 5G and VR to provide Chinese soccer fans with a surreal experience.

Migu announced on its official Sina Weibo account that it will host a “Metaverse World Cup Music Festival” and that a “surprise visitor” from the year 2070 will be in attendance.

Watching the World Cup live on Douyin! was a prominently displayed message on the company’s Weibo page. Pico, a virtual reality headset manufacturer also owned by ByteDance, announced that their VR goggles will be compatible with live World Cup broadcasts, allowing soccer fans to invite distant pals into their own digital rooms to watch matches together.

You Xi, the co-founder of the Kandong app, told the Global Times on Sunday that the World Cup will bring a lot of much-needed new users to the internet as a result of its status as a global sporting event with a tremendous influence.

Furthermore, You said, a football game is an ideal setting for implementing the new technologies, and the event will be a huge boost for the VR and metaverse sector in China.

“There has been little advancement since the former Facebook, an American computer company, rebranded as Meta and proposed the idea of the metaverse. The Chinese government, however, has been actively promoting growth at both the national and corporate levels “Sunday’s issue of the Global Times featured an interview with Chen Jia, an impartial observer of the business.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, along with four other government agencies, released a five-year plan on November 1 to accelerate the growth of the virtual reality (VR) sector from 2022 to 2026, with the ultimate goal of increasing the sector’s total industrial scale to more than 350 billion yuan ($48.1 billion) by 2026.

The plan’s overarching objective is to improve the ecosystem in which virtual reality (VR) operates in order to increase its chances of being widely embraced for use in driving economic growth.

In addition to gaining an early footing in the sector, China may assess the overall quality of the industry chain in the field of virtual reality technology by applying different scenarios in the metaverse of this World Cup, as Chen pointed out.

On the other hand, as seasoned internet expert, Guo Tao pointed out, the metaverse as a whole is just getting started. Some issues, such as underdeveloped technology and business models, require validation from customers in the marketplace.

According to an interview Guo gave to the Global Times on Sunday, “the application in sports events is mainly concentrated in the fields of virtual events, virtual anchors, virtual studios, digital management, and other fields, while the user experience remains inadequate and the product stickiness is not enough.”