A sporting event to be experienced physically inside the stadium and on the streets of the city but also remotely, immersing oneself within a new interactive digital environment. The Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships will have a “phygital” dimension, thanks to the innovative project developed by the EuroRoma 2024 Foundation and the company XMetaReal, which specializes in creating experiences, services and content within the Metaverse.
The dream of Roma 2024 is also taking shape in the digital world. In fact, starting in September, all athletics fans will have a space dedicated to them and will be able to start exploring the sites of the European Championships, where the continent’s best athletes will compete next summer. This will be a unique and immersive experience, never before experienced for a sporting event in Italy, with strong appeal to younger generations and beyond.
Young Italian Larissa Iapichino, who has just graduated as European Under-23 champion in the long jump in Finland after her silver medal at the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul and her triumph with Italy at the recent European Team Championships in Poland, will be the first athlete to join the Roma 2024 Metaverse as an official testimonial of the project. “While the countdown to next year’s European Championships at the Olympic Stadium has already begun, I can’t wait to jump into the Roma 2024 Metaverse and use my avatar to meet other visitors. The virtual world can be a positive opportunity to bring new people, especially young people, closer to the disciplines of athletics, broadening the audience of spectators even in reality. It will be an honor for me to participate in such an innovative project, in which technology becomes a real springboard to consolidate Roma 2024 as an event capable of intercepting and enhancing new trends in society,” Iapichino said.
As the Metaverse Experience Supplier for Roma 2024, XMetaReal will build a new digital environment inspired by the venues that will host the European Athletics Championships. The Roma 2024 Metaverse will open in September, nine months before the start of the competition, which will be held June 7-12, 2024. The spatiotemporal limits of reality will thus be overcome, to grant the opportunity for anyone to experience Rome 2024 as if they were in the “physical” places. Connected users from all over the world will be able to visit the Metaverse using an avatar, move from place to place by teleportation, take a full tour of the Olympic Stadium track, and preview where the platforms for jumps and throws will be placed on the field during the European Championships. This will provide fans of the various disciplines of athletics with a new tool to select and reserve the ideal stadium seat to watch their favorite competitions live next summer.
To explore the Roma 2024 Metaverse, it will be enough to connect with the most common mobile and fixed devices, while those wearing VR visors, designed specifically for Virtual Reality, will have an even more immersive experience. Users will also be able to interact with digital assets and receive Roma 2024 tokens, redeeming full ownership.
During the experience inside the Metaverse one can also move among the avenues and squares of the Foro Italico Park and visit the Commercial Village, where digital stores will be opened. A new channel made available to the event’s partners, which amplifies and extends commercial opportunities over time, in anticipation of the opening of outlets at the Foro Italico during the European Championships.
“The partnership with XMetaReal to create the Metaverse will mark a turning point in the organization of the European Championships and will allow athletics fans to immerse themselves in a modern, interactive and immersive space. Innovation is one of the key concepts in our plan, and with the Roma 2024 Metaverse we will offer audiences around the world a unique experience with a powerful impact,” said Paolo Carito, general manager of the EuroRoma 2024 Foundation, which is organizing the European Athletics Championships.
“The creation of the Metaverse for Roma 2024 opens up new scenarios and new ways of experiencing sport in an innovative and inclusive way. The possibility of transforming a sporting event into a social event, expanding the audience and spreading the values of sport is now the reality, physical and digital together. We should be proud as “Sistema Italia” to have given birth to such an important initiative. Embracing digital innovation in such a special field as sports really means cultivating a forward-looking mindset. One more “leap forward” toward the Digital Transformation of our country,” concludes Vittorio Zingales, founder and Ceo of XMetaReal.
