NBA, Facebook's Oculus give us the best VR sports film yet, via the 2016 Finals

There are no spoilers for the 2016 NBA Finals, we already know that Cleveland made history. But the NBA and Oculus just made sports-media history by giving us those epic moments in virtual reality. 

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In partnership with Facebook's Oculus team, the NBA has released a VR documentary that immerses you in the dramatic games in Oakland and Cleveland that led to LeBron James and Kyrie Irving delivering the Cavaliers its first championship. 

Narrated by actor Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Friday Night Lights, Creed), the 25-minute documentary finally begins to make good on the promise of VR as a platform, with editing and camerawork that make you feel like you're there, rather than just peeking in on a panoramic video. 

The experience, titled Follow My Lead: The Story of the 2016 NBA Finals, was directed by Ray Tintori and Gabe Spitzer for m ss ng p eces, the studio that recently worked with Google on its Tilt Brush VR video promotion. 

Image: COURTESY OF THE NBA

The duo used three cameras — the Facebook Surround 360, the Samsung Gear 360 for tight shots and Nokia's futuristic-looking Ozo VR — to capture the ups and downs of the championship series. 

Whereas previous VR documentaries simply hoped that the immersive nature of the panoramic video would be enough to engage viewers, this new experience works hard to make you feel as though you're actually there. That dynamic is most apparent during the scenes that put you in the middle of fans and in VIP areas, which, in combination with the production's use of spatial audio, truly take you to another place. 

"There are a couple of innovations here as far as storytelling. One is the length [this is one of the longest VR documentaries we've seen], and the other is cuts [edits]," says Ari Kuschnir, the founder of m ss ng p eces and executive producer of the VR project. "I was worried that with a long-form VR piece that we would lose people, that they would stop knowing where to look. So we repositioned some of the shots so that you don't lose the thread of what's happening. It's obvious, but other [productions] don't do it." 

Evoking the same kind of import and historic approach of ESPN's 30 for 30 series, the experience represents the next step in telling truly sophisticated documentary stories in VR. Nevertheless, the most exciting future for VR in sports remains live streaming, something the NBA has experimented with before. 

Image: COURTESY OF THE NBA

"We haven't stopped experimenting with the live streaming and we continue to work with NextVR to advance it," says Jeff Marsilio, vice president of global media distribution for the NBA. "There's a balance to be struck where you feel like you're there, but you get all the context that you need that you get from television in order to make it feel like a complete experience, and that's what we're focused on. We don't have anything to announce, but we haven't given up on it."

Until the day when we can buy VR tickets to games happening on the other side of the country, this new experience is the next best thing. 

Follow My Lead is available starting Wednesday, for free, on the Samsung Gear VR as well as on Facebook's website as a 360 video.