SVG Sit-Down: Cosm's Devin Poolman on What It Takes To Deliver the Immersive Experience for Daytona, The PLAYERS, and March Madness Immersive lens and spatial audio are new technology being developed By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, March 13, 2025 - 2:58 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The world of immersive entertainment is evolving rapidly, and Cosm is at the forefront of redefining how fans experience live sports via its Shared Reality venues in L.A. and Dallas featuring immersive an 87-foot diameter LED dome and 150-foot-wide LED display. From courtside seats at the NBA Finals and World Series to front-row views of the UFC and Super Bowl LIX, Cosm pushes the boundaries of what it means to be there without physically being there. Now the company is taking on a variety of new challenges, including NASCAR's Daytona 500 last month, the PGA TOUR's PLAYERS Championship this week, and the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments beginning next week.
SVG sat down the Devin Poolman, chief product and technology officer, Cosm, to explore how Cosm approached its first NASCAR event at Daytona, its expansion into golf at THE PLAYERS Championship, the company's ambitious plans for March Madness, and how its proprietary technology is shaping the future of sports viewing both inside and outside its venues. From custom-built immersive lenses to innovative audio-capture techniques, Poolman discusses how the company's technology not only serves the Cosm experience but also benefits leagues and broadcasters.
Cosm's Devin Poolman: We look at everything we're doing right now as Phase 1, and we're excited to build up [our portfolio of] events.
Let's start with Daytona. Obviously, motorsports and larger speedways are very different from many of the sports Cosm has covered thus far. Why did it make sense to deliver NASCAR in the Cosm experience?
It's a less obvious fit [for the Cosm experience], for sure, but there are huge opportunities with [NASCAR] as well. [For] events that are more intimate, Cosm experience can bring a level of visceral reality: UFC is a great example; you are truly in the midst of it. Other [events] bring you the grandeur of the live environment or iconic destination: Daytona is very much that.
The same goes for NFL stadiums or the World Series at Dodger Stadium and Yankee Stadium. Those are less obviously made for immersive capture in that you think you want to be close. But the other part of immersive capture is, you want a sense of place; you want to feel like you're there. Those factors - being up close and having a sense of place - can play together and make an event great.
I thought Daytona was incredible because you felt like you were in the grandstand. Our team captured the essence of that event and gave you that feeling like you're incredibly, even uncomfortably close to the action while still giving you the excitement of being in the grandstand.
How did your production strategy change in covering Daytona compared with stick-and-ball sports?
I think the biggest difference was that Daytona gave us an opportunity to push the boundaries in terms of audio. I always say that we're still in the early days of finding ways to drive the experience forward. [With] Daytona, we wanted to capture not just the visuals of being on the turn but the thrill of that audio as well.
The Cosm experience gave fans feeling of being in grandstand at the Daytona 500.
In a typical production, we're relying on the broadcaster to provide a great 5.1 audio mix. But we knew that, for the NASCAR experience, just having the announcers and the program audio coming in from the broadcaster - FOX, in this case - wouldn't be enough to capture the experience of sitting on that turn watching cars flying by. Especially, if FOX is covering pit lane and you're supposed to be sitting on turn watching these cars fly by 200 mph, there's going to be a total disconnect if you don't have the sound of the cars.
Our team worked hand in hand with FOX to pull all their unique audio stems and create a per-camera mix of audio, so we could cut around the track, covering a few corners as well as that high wide shot.
We did a custom immersive-audio mix on a per-camera basis and brought that into the Cosm experience. The sound was amazing, but it was the first time we were trying that on the ground so we were building the plane as we were flying. Thankfully, we have an awesome team, and they did a great job. After the first few laps, the audio was great.
What was the camera-coverage plan for Daytona?
For Daytona, we used a single capture system, typically four or five cameras and an onsite crew. Daytona was three shots on the corner and a high wide, as well as a secondary high wide, and we had audio stems for each of those positions. We're looking forward to doing more NASCAR in the future.
You're starting another chapter again this week with golf at THE PLAYERS Championship. How are you bringing a sprawling golf course to the Cosm immersive experience?
This will be our first golf tournament, and golf presents a unique challenge because, unlike with most of the events we cover (even a big racetrack like Daytona), there isn't one place where all the action is taking place. Instead of one vantage point, there are 18 or more events going on at once. It's up to us to find the best way to capture the action.
We're going to try to give the fans the best of both worlds, similar to the old days of going to the baseball game and bringing a handheld radio so you could be there in person but also follow the storyline of the broadcaster. That's going to be the focus for golf.
Just like going to the tournament [in person], you're going to pick your hole. The good news is,
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
29/05/2026
Genelec announces V2.1 for Aural ID binaural headphone monitoring application posted: 29/05/2026
Aural ID 2.1 enhances binaural monitoring for stereo and ...
29/05/2026
At just 20 years old, Sean Melia from Summerhill Co. Meath has been revealed as the winner of Super Garden 2026. Sean is the youngest ever contestant and winner...
SVG Sit-Down: Cosm's Devin Poolman on What It Takes To Deliver the Immersive Experience for Daytona, The PLAYERS, and March Madness Immersive lens and spatial audio are new technology being developed By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
