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
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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,
