San Marino resident Joel Newton, right, and Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes have collaborated on a virtual reality project.
In a development that surprised absolutely nobody familiar with the sport, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was named most valuable player of the 2020 Super Bowl this month after leading his team to a 31-20 victory over the San Francisco 49ers in the 54th edition of America’s biggest sporting event.
The news was especially welcome to a San Marino family, though perhaps for reasons different from Mahomes’. For Joel Newton, the announcement confirmed a platform in which his company has made a substantial investment, while for his son Caleb, a Huntington Middle School 7th-grader — well, it was just darned cool.
Mahomes’ success has taken the NFL by storm, with commentators and analysts profusely complimenting the revolutionary quarterback, who is adept at all facets of the game and previously was named the league’s MVP after the 2018 season. Last year, Joel Newton and his business associates at the immersive entertainment company CityLights approached Mahomes with an idea for a unique marketing opportunity.
The project — the MVP Experience — will have fans at future Chiefs home games put on a virtual reality headset and be transported onto the Arrowhead Stadium field. You’re the quarterback, facing an NFL defense while crowd noise flowing through the headset makes matters difficult to process. But virtual Mahomes will be there to coach you to find holes in the defense and drive your team to victory. The MVP Experience will also use augmented reality holograms, and a mixed reality video will be available for fans afterward so they can share their experience on social media.
The game is expected to spread quickly beyond Arrowhead.
Caleb Newton, a 7th-grader at Huntington Middle School, has been able to meet the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes since his father began work on a project with the quarterback, who was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 2018.
Newton is teaming on the MVP Experience project with Travis Cloyd, known for award-winning work in extended reality. Mahomes, who serves as an executive producer, said he was drawn to the project because of its new and innovative nature.
“As I looked at things that I wanted to do, I wanted to find ways that I could do different things that no one else has done before,” Mahomes told CityLights. “And this is definitely one project that I was excited to do.”
Mahomes was introduced to virtual reality technology during his college football career at Texas Tech, where the Red Raiders used VR to help players perform drills and scout opposing teams.
“We weren’t necessarily live, but we were doing live reps at the same time,” Mahomes said. “And we would go back in and actually watch the film through the headsets and see exactly what we were seeing on the field or as close to it as you possibly could to get those extra reps. Even guys who had some injuries and were not able to practice would use that to get the reps that they couldn’t.”
As VR use becomes more prevalent, football broadcasts are trying to incorporate more of its elements to give viewers a feel for what the quarterback sees on the field.
Caleb Newton is enjoying the rare experience of having a parent who is in regular contact with a burgeoning football legend, and has on multiple occasions been able to meet his new hero.
“Last summer, I was lucky enough to meet Patrick Mahomes with my little brother, Joshua, and my friends Luke McNulty and John Battaglia,” Caleb said. “Meeting a celebrity basically freezes your brain because you are in so much shock. He broke the ice by asking about the cast on my arm, which he signed. I put the cast in a shadow box.”
Caleb suffered a broken thumb last summer while participating in a baseball tournament in Cooperstown, New York, site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. “Before Christmas, my dad and I flew to Kansas City to watch the Chiefs play a game in the snow, which is one of the best sports memories of my life. We got to go in the tunnel where the players run out and we were also able to go in the locker room bar, which has lots of televisions and cool Chiefs stuff, right next to where the players walk out of the locker room.”
While Caleb is understandably enthusiastic about this rare opportunity, he is also well-informed about his father’s project.
“They used a system with 27 cameras around Patrick to make super-precise 3D videos of his body, and they captured Arrowhead Stadium with lasers so you can move around within it in VR,” Caleb said excitedly. “There’s an actual football that you throw into the net, and Patrick shows up to show you what to do. They are producing it to be something fun for fans next season.”
