As a long-time fan of the San Diego Padres, I have attended hundreds of games at Petco Park and had the opportunity to sit everywhere in the stadium. I have also watched my fair share of games at the San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park (formerly AT&T Park). These stadiums are regularly ranked among the few best in Major League Baseball. And besides attending dozens of live games each season, I watch a lot of high-definition baseball and other sports on my computer or TV.
With all that said, I was absolutely blown away by the Apple Immersive experience delivered via Apple TV to my Apple Vision Pro headset. Using Apple Immersive on the Vision Pro to watch my Padres take on the Giants at Oracle Park couldn’t have been a better venue, sport, or viewing experience. Without a doubt, it was the best sports viewing experience I’ve ever had outside of a stadium.
Apple Immersive Isn’t Apple’s First Foray into XR Sports or Baseball
Previously, Apple’s Friday Night Baseball games have mostly been streamed on the Vision Pro at a very high-bitrate 1080P using the Apple TV app. This is the same app you can use to watch Formula 1 and MLS games, along with Ted Lasso and the many other shows Apple streams. While I have used it to watch a few Friday Night Baseball games and a couple of MLS matches on my Vision Pro, I will say that most of my baseball viewing happens on the MLBTV app or via the MLB.tv website while I’m at my desk or using my TV. I have even taken my XGIMI projector with me to friends’ houses to watch MLB games outside — projected on the side of the house — but I had never before watched a baseball game in full immersive video. The closest thing to it that I had seen was a Lakers game that got the Apple Immersive treatment earlier this year (but more on my reservations about that below).
MLB had also previously tried something using the MLB app on the Vision Pro to attempt a more immersive baseball experience, but it didn’t meaningfully enhance the experience — at least not enough to get me to put on my headset to watch the game. My best viewing experience for baseball has been watching via Apple TV on the Vision Pro, but using the Padres’ official radio or TV announcers for audio. The image quality is so much better on Vision Pro with Apple TV that I genuinely prefer that over watching on my own television, especially since I can take the game with me anywhere; on the headset, I can also change the display area to the size of a laptop screen or the size of my wall.
Apple Immersive Baseball Is Something New
Late in 2025, Apple announced that it would be renewing Friday Night Baseball, plus expanding the programming to include a more immersive experience that would take advantage of the Vision Pro’s capabilities and provide 8K streams of the game from different perspectives, including camera angles from the outfield, behind the plate, and in the dugout. Viewers also get a virtual scoreboard with player stats and a mini video feed of the batter from the outfield cameras looking in at home plate.
The primary camera angle appears to be from just to the right of home plate, somewhere near the on-deck circle (where the next batter waits for his turn). These angles are different from standard Apple TV streams; those leverage smartphones for camera angles, while Apple Immersive depends on dual-lens 8K cameras. These cameras deliver an incredibly immersive experience that made me feel like I was really at the game, in a way that other setups simply haven’t been able to deliver. For example, Apple’s immersive NBA broadcast earlier this year took me out of any feeling of immersion because of its camera angles. Sure, I enjoyed the courtside-like experience, but basketball moves a lot faster than baseball, and I think that makes it a lot harder on stream quality.
There were some drawbacks to the immersive baseball broadcast, too. I think my biggest frustration was that you are still locked into the perspective of the stream chosen by the broadcast, so you don’t have much room for customization. It would be nice to be able to choose my feed if I don’t like what I’m seeing on the main broadcast. On top of that, the transmission was delayed by a whole batter (probably one to two minutes), which made using the MLB app alongside it a big spoiler. And while this isn’t about the technology itself, if Apple wants to improve the broadcast, it should seriously consider getting better announcers. I’m spoiled in this regard because the Padres’ home callers, Don Orsillo and Mark Grant, might be the best broadcast duo in baseball, but the negative feedback about the current Apple announcers has been consistent from non-Padres fans, too.
But back to the upsides. I liked it that you didn’t have to go fully immersive on the headset. You can choose full immersion, or dial it back and have the game nebulously hanging out in the center of your screen space. If that doesn’t satisfy you, you can also limit the 3-D immersive experience to a small window while you do other things or just walk around. My preference was to pop in my AirPods Pro 3 earbuds and sit back to enjoy full immersion, especially with that incredible camera quality — and the experience of watching the Padres beat the Giants.
Apple’s Commitment to Immersive Sports
Considering how rapidly these offerings for the Vision Pro have expanded and improved, it is clear that Apple continues to invest in delivering a better and more immersive sports experience. I hope to see Apple continue down this path, perhaps as part of its new partnership with F1. (For its part, F1 has not been shy about embracing new applications of technology to enhance the fan experience.)
I would love to see Apple give the full immersive treatment to an F1 race — or season — within the Vision Pro. I’m not sure it needs to be a full Apple TV broadcast at first; it would be great to start with just an AR-based experience following the cars around the track. I’ve had the luxury of attending multiple F1 races, and one of the biggest pain points at the race is that you can only really see the cars right when they fly by. A fully immersive experience for people watching at home and an AR experience for people on site would be a great enhancement for an F1 race day. And, since baseball was so impressive, someday I would love to see an F1 race in 8K immersive.
