Latest VR Experience Launches with Courier Journal

USA TODAY NETWORK’s Emerging Technology team, in collaboration with the Courier Journal, launched it latest VR experience this week. “You Be the Ref” is a quiz giving viewers an opportunity to test out their officiating skills by watching five college football plays and choosing the correct play after each.

The experience was film in Bowling Green, Kentucky during a Western Kentucky Hilltoppers practice. The interactive was built on Facebook’s ReatVR platform and is available on desktop and mobile web on iOS and Android devices.

“We really wanted to use the technology not just to take someone someplace flashy, but to teach them something”, says Chris White, sports director, Courier Journal. “If you go through the You Be the Ref experience, you’re going to walk away with a better understanding of what a college football referee does and just how difficult a job it can be. We also wanted it to be authentic, and thanks to the great access granted by Western Kentucky University and the insight of college football officiating expert Rogers Redding, we were able to design an experience that captures a bit of what it’s like to be a referee making calls amid the chaos of a college football game.”

This is the second VR project in collaboration with the Courier Journal. The previous project took viewers inside Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace distillery. You can view that experience here.