Apple is bringing reside NBA video games to the Imaginative and prescient Professional in 2026

Apple is partnering with Spectrum SportsNet to stream choose Los Angeles Lakers video games on to the Apple Vision Pro throughout the 2025-2026 basketball season. The video games will likely be filmed within the Apple Immersive video format, the identical VR-friendly filming fashion the corporate used to seize the Metallica concert film it launched earlier this yr.

Past providing you with a motive to blow the mud off your $3,500 Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, watching the video games in-headset will showcase “views unattainable to seize in conventional broadcasts,” Apple claims. Stay video games will likely be restricted to headset house owners dwelling within the Lakers’ regional broadcast territory (Southern California, Hawaii and elements of southern Nevada) and can seemingly require a subscription to view, however Apple says the complete replays and highlights may also be accessible in “choose international locations and areas from each the SportsNet and NBA apps.” There isn’t any schedule of video games out there but, however Apple and Spectrum say they’re going to announce their remaining plans this fall, with the primary video games streaming early 2026.

Whereas the final consensus on the Imaginative and prescient Professional is that it makes for an important media consumption system, sports activities programming that takes benefit of its distinctive options has been largely lacking. Apple makes it straightforward to observe issues like Friday Evening Baseball and Main League Soccer, however the NBA is the one mainstream sports activities league attempting to supply an expertise that is particular to the Imaginative and prescient Professional. Past taking part in reside video games, the NBA visionOS app can show real-time participant stats, stream a number of video games directly in multiview and present you a tabletop view of video games, full with a 3D courtroom and tiny gamers.

Now that Apple is reportedly prioritizing smart glasses over a lighter and cheaper version of the Vision Pro, the most effective factor the corporate can do is provide current house owners with new issues to observe. Not everybody loves the Lakers, but when it opens the door to extra reside sports activities sooner or later, that is solely a great factor.