Manchester City to build Etihad Stadium in Metaverse

Premier League champions Manchester City FC and their new partner Sony have begun building a virtual replica of the Etihad Stadium, which will be the team's central hub in the Metaverse.

The Etihad Stadium is currently home to Manchester City, England's top football team. The team announced on February 18 that it had signed a three-year deal with Sony that will provide virtual reality specialists with access to image analysis and skeletal tracking technology from subsidiary Hawk-Eye.

Manchester City are developing the first football stadium in the Metaverse

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City want fans to enjoy all the benefits of a virtual stadium. While COVID-19 restrictions still hamper travel options for some, being able to watch the game in an immersive metaverse could be comforting to fans eager to revisit the setting.

The team is removing geographic barriers for fans who want to attend live or recorded matches, starting with the construction of a virtual Etihad Stadium. City Football Group Chief Marketing Officer Nuria Tarre told Inews on 18 February:

"We can imagine that the whole point of having the Metaverse is that you can recreate a game, you can watch it live, you can play it in different ways from different angles, you can fill the stadium as much as you want because it's infinite. Yes, it's completely virtual."

Sony's Hawk-Eye subsidiary has long been working to improve sports for spectators and officials alike. It can help officials make real-time judgments in games through professional playback technology. Its visualization application will be used to recreate the dimensions of the Etihad Stadium in the Metaverse.

“Enhanced interactivity and ownership of virtual items” are special assets of having a base in the Metaverse, Cointelegraph wrote on Jan. 23. City may seize both opportunities to make the team and the stadium more accessible to fans around the world.

Manchester City's foray into Web3 and the Metaverse could interest Liverpool FC. According to Liverpool news outlet ECHO, the Red Army Liverpool may follow the example of Manchester City in order to increase income.

Rival Manchester United Football Club also announced a new partnership with Tezos (XTZ) on February 10 to enter the Web3 ecosystem. Tezos will be the team's official crypto and training suite partner and may help develop digital merchandise.

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