Middlesbrough FC have become the latest Premier League club to get on the virtual reality craze, launching a VR app to take fans around the club’s Riverside Stadium in 360 degrees.

The Boro VR 360 experience app allows fans to trace the footsteps of the team’s players, following their route as they enter the stadium and make their way to the home dressing room. Beyond that, the app provides users with profiles for Boro players, as well as the chance to join in with the squad’s training exercises and walk out to the cheering crowd before kick off.

VR is still virgin ground for fan engagement experiences like this, and as such, this is only a start. But if VR does become much more mainstream, the widespread appeal of being able to see actual football games as though you were standing at a certain point in a stadium through a VR headset could surely be in the pipeline.

Whilst we’re still some way from that sort of content in VR, and whilst broadcasters and rightsholders would need to get on board, as well as advances in VR and a desire from the general public to essentially sit in their front rooms with a VR headset plonked across their face, it does seem like linking this sort of technology with sport in the form of official club apps ties the two together to and paves the way for further exciting possibilities in the future.