Lakers Basketball Goes Pro: Live Immersive Games Launch January 9 on Vision Pro

Sports fans who own a Vision Pro may be in for a treat this Friday, as the company has officially announced that it will begin streaming Los Angeles Lakers games in Apple Immersive video starting on January 9 with the tip-off when they host the Milwaukee Bucks at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

Reports of Apple plans to bring live NBA games to the Vision Pro go back to the month after the company officially unveiled its new headset, when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver confirmed that his league and Apple were discussing “a tech-enhanced viewing experience” for the Vision Pro. However, we didn’t hear any concrete details until this past October, when Charter Communications issued a press release to announce its partnership with Apple “to facilitate and distribute a selection of live Lakers games in the 2025-26 season for Apple Vision Pro.”

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While that announcement didn’t offer a timeframe more specific than “early 2026,” it noted that the immersive experience would be confined to only select games, and some would be “limited to the Lakers’ regional broadcast territory.”

Today, Apple confirmed this while providing a detailed schedule of which games we can expect to be streamed in Apple Immersive video — and when. Sadly, the list of only six games isn’t quite as extensive as some basketball fans had hoped, but it’s a start. Here’s the rundown, per Apple:

While five of the six games are being played on the Lakers home turf, it’s notable that there’s also an away game on the list. Since shooting immersive video requires specialized equipment, many had assumed that only the Crypto.com arena would be equipped for it, but the March 5 game at Ball Arena in Denver suggests that Apple plans to take its recording rig on the road.

The games are being shot using specially modified versions of Blackmagic Design’s URSA Cine Immersive Live camera, placed courtside and under each basket to provide the most immersive experience possible — one that will likely resemble the demo of the better-than-courtside view of a scoring play from a Nuggets-Suns NBA basketball game that Apple showed off to the press when it unveiled the Vision Pro.

To make the experience even more immersive, Apple is also rendering in-game graphics like play rosters, clocks, and scores in 3D, letting them float directly in front of the viewer. It also goes beyond video: ambisonic microphones will be used to create Spatial Audio of the arena so you’ll hear every swish and squeak around you as if you’re really there, and even remain virtually in the arena during timeouts, halftimes, and other breaks. Immersive means immersive.

Apple and Spectrum have also confirmed that the immersive broadcasts will feature the dedicated team of Emmy Award-winning play-by-play commentator Mark Rogondino and three-time NBA champion and former Lakers forward Danny Green as an analyst.

Apple has also filled in some of the blanks on availability, which was a bit vague in the original announcement:

1. Live Games: As expected, live viewing in the US will be limited to “Southern California, Hawaii, and parts of southern Nevada, including Las Vegas,” which is the Lakers’ regional broadcast territory. However, Vision Pro users in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea will also be able to tune in live.
2. Full-game replays and highlights will be available 24 hours after the live game ends, and be watched anywhere in the US as well as in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UAE, and the UK.
3. The Apps: Games will be broadcast via a new Spectrum SportsNet app and the NBA app for the Vision Pro. You’ll also need to be running visionOS 26 to enjoy these.
4. Free with an NBA ID: A Spectrum SportsNet subscription will be required to use Spectrum’s app, but the NBA app can be used to watch the immersive games with a free NBA ID. That’s a notable exception to the normal policy, which still requires an NBA League Pass to watch traditional game broadcasts live or online.
   

Apple specifically notes that “Spectrum Front Row in Apple Immersive will not be available in Canada, China mainland, Hong Kong, or Taiwan.” It’s a bit unusual to list the countries where a new service is not available — Apple usually just omits them from the list — but in this case it presumably wants to make the limitation clear since the NBA app is available in those countries; it’s just the immersive experience that’s not, for whatever reason.