Oculus Quest 2 owners can watch over 50 live NBA games for free
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Meta has announced that it will continue its partnership with the NBA and give basketball fans the chance to watch 52 live games in VR for free during the 2022-23 season.
If you have a Meta Quest Pro or an Oculus Quest 2 headset, you can dive into XTADIUM (a US-only app) or Horizon Worlds to watch the games as they happen. Horizon Worlds also offers players the chance to participate in interactive mini-games and watch highlights and recaps of missed matches.
If you want to check out these free games, the lineup for January is:
- Milwaukee Bucks vs Detroit Pistons:
- January 23, 4pm PT / January 24, midnight GMT / January 24, 10am AEST
- Denver Nuggets vs New Orleans Pelicans:
- January 24, 5pm PT / January 25, 1am GMT / January 25, 11am AEST
- Denver Nuggets vs Milwaukee Bucks:
- January 25, 5pm PT / January 26, 1am GMT / January 26, 11am AEST
- Cleveland Cavaliers vs Oklahoma City Thunder:
- January 27, 5pm PT / January 28, 1am GMT / January 28, 11am AEST
- Los Angeles Clippers vs Cleveland Cavaliers:
- January 29, 4pm PT / January 30, midnight GMT / January 30, 10am AEST
- Miami Heat v Cleveland Cavaliers:
- January 31, 4:00 PM PT / February 1, midnight GMT / February 1, 10:00 AM AEST
If you can’t catch any of these, matches will run until April 9, so you’ll have plenty of time to catch a few before the season ends; the full schedule can be found in the official Meta Quest blog post (opens in new tab).
Plus, five of the NBA games (Meta hasn’t yet announced which ones) will be available to watch in 180-degree immersive VR with celebrity broadcasters giving you their commentary on the action. This more immersive view puts you on the field as you watch the game unfold, making it feel more like you’re at the event itself rather than just seeing it on a TV screen.
And if that wasn’t enough b-ball for you, Meta will also host some WNBA, NBA G League, and NBA 2K League games.
But before you get too excited, there are some limitations to be aware of. For starters, you’ll need to be in a region that has access to Horizon Worlds – Meta’s metaverse platform currently only available to users in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Iceland, France, and Spain.
Although, even if you are in one of these regions, your entry is not guaranteed. Meta warns that some content won’t be accessible in every region (a bit like Netflix in the US and UK have different catalogs based on how rights are distributed) and that some viewers who live near the stadiums in which the games take place can be locked away from watching the matches. Unfortunately, Meta is a bit vague about who can and can’t watch a match, so you may have to watch a few matches yourself to know if you’re locked out or not.
That said, it’s definitely worth giving it a try. VR concerts and sports aren’t a substitute for attending the actual live event – you don’t really get a sense of the atmosphere – but they’re still an absolute blast, especially when they’re free this way. be attended NBA games.
If you’re looking for other things to do with your VR headset, check out our picks for the best Oculus Quest 2 games to download and play today.