Fans are packing the stands to watch their favorite pro sports teams in record numbers, but not everyone can score (or afford) tickets to the actual game. That’s created an opportunity for immersive experiences that bring boosters together IRL by virtually bringing the game to life.
Cosm, a nascent shared reality company, aims to hit paydirt in this area with experiential venues that offer innovative, realistic displays in an arena-like atmosphere. It launched its first venue mid-July in Los Angeles, followed closely by its second in Dallas. They feel a lot like being at the game—an experience many sports fans will never know firsthand, much less sitting virtually a few feet from the world’s best athletes with million-dollar views of the action.
“You can walk around and see the game from anywhere. I haven’t [been to an NBA game], but on the floor of the Dome, it feels like you’re courtside,” said L.A. resident Ezekiel Aceves, who watched his Lakers win the first NBA game broadcast at Cosm.
He’s referring to the massive, panoramic Dome display that captures the intimacy of VR and expands that to a larger-than-life social experience (no headsets required). This access, created with proprietary cutting-edge technology, upscale hospitality, and an atmosphere buzzing with fans, may boost the startup’s bid to create a new shared reality category. Cosm announced in July that it raised $250 million at a $1 billion valuation, with its sights set on global expansion.
“We want to be category defining, just the one of one,” Cosm president and CEO Jeb Terry Jr. tells Fortune. A former Fox Sports executive and NFL lineman, he started the company with executive chairman Steve Winn of Mirasol Capital about five years ago. “We look at this as one of the world’s best watch parties, leveraging the best of breed technology with incredible views, leveled-up hospitality, and that energy of fandom.”
Virtual home in the Dome
Fandom is a word you hear and something you experience inside the modern, white façade of the 65,000 square-foot Cosm located just south of L.A. in Inglewood. It sits in the Hollywood Park development created by L.A. Rams’ owner Stan Kroenke along with his neighboring SoFi Stadium. The NBA Clippers’ new Intuit Dome is across the street, and the famous Forum a few blocks north.
On the night of the NBA’s tipoff, a sold-out crowd of about 2,000 wearing Lakers gear pre-gamed throughout the venue, from the third-floor rooftop called the Deck during a trademark SoCal sunset to the Hall—a space that combines elements of a massive, multi-tiered sports bar or food hall with communal tables and the open-air feel of a concourse bar at newer sports venues.
Here, fans followed fast breaks by LeBron and company along a high-resolution LED wall—a stunning, curved 15-foot tall, 150-foot-long display running above the main entrance with a game feed that loudly bathed viewers in basketball.
Other patrons watched from the main attraction, the Dome—a 55-foot-high seating area with three floors of reserved tables, couches, and bar seats that fans said reminded them of finding their seats in an arena. The 87-foot-wide LED display featuring 12k+ resolution felt like you were staring into a planetarium’s rounded ceiling set on its side.
This is by design. Cosm’s proprietary technology that takes audiences to the stars in more than 700 planetariums worldwide is now bringing the planet’s luminary athletes within reach. The company’s name is a portmanteau, merging cosmos with the colosseum (or Coliseum in LA, home of the USC Trojans).
The immersive effect of stargazing is immediate, although in this case, fans sold out the Dome to see LeBron James and Anthony Davis rendered larger-than-life. Because the screen is more than 100 times brighter than a typical planetarium, fans can see each other for high fives and sharing served food and drinks.
“It feels just like you’re at the game,” said former NBA forward Metta Sandiford-Artest, known as Metta World Peace when he retired from the Lakers, who sat in The Dome for the game.
“As a Laker fan, the stress level is exactly the same. Cosm’s dope,” seconded actor O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (best known for portraying his father, Ice Cube, in Straight Outta Compton). “Nothing beats the environment, a crowd all going for the same team. One band, one sound.”
A new play for pro sports leagues and fans alike
The NBA sees Cosm as a new way for fans to interact with the game. “Most people aren’t going to get to sit courtside, and [at Cosm] you are literally at center court or right under the basket. Ninety-nine percent of NBA fans never make it to an NBA game,” Teddy Kaplan, the NBA’s VP of new media partnerships, told Fortune.
“Our fans are young, tech savvy, and they don’t just expect the NBA to innovate—they demand it,” he added. “When I stepped into the Dome, it was eye-opening. Partnerships like this are both the reason why, and the answer to what, our fans are demanding.”
In addition to NBA games, Cosm recently secured rights to produce and broadcast certain NFL games to its venues. Cosm has also hosted English Premier League breakfast matches, NHL games, and UFC events as well as the World Series.
That’s great news for sports fans looking to watch their favorite team on a budget. While Lakers tickets typically start at $60 and quickly run into triple digits, the average get-in price for Cosm was $22 for the first NBA game. Prices vary depending on the event and reserved seats; tickets for the World Series ranged from $77 for general admission to $300 each in the Cosm L.A. Dome. By comparison, the cheapest World Series tickets in L.A. ran about $1,000 each on the secondary market.
Terry is banking that the overall experience and service will keep fans coming back for more. Cosm also serves an elevated take on bar food, with options like birria tacos, ceviche, and steak as well as wings and pretzels alongside top-shelf liquor and craft brews. “Our technology will wow, but it’s our hospitality that wins,” he said.
Over the horizon
Since 2020, Terry and Winn acquired the technology behind Cosm through key acquisitions including LiveLike VR, computer graphics pioneer Evans and Sutherland, and software and tech firm C360—which makes the goal line pylon cameras used during some NFL broadcasts and helps produce some games for broadcast and distribution to the Cosm Domes.
This in-house technology helps Cosm diversify its business beyond the immersive sports experiences in the Dome. There is also a full slate of non-sports programming shown in The Dome, including planetarium shows plus Cirque du Soleil and concerts that take patrons stageside as well as singular art experiences. The company’s media arm produces live immersive, shared reality experiences in what it calls “fulldome filmmaking.”
The company doesn’t reveal its financials or fees for programming rights, but its recent funding round—which includes funds controlled by pro sports team investors David Blitzer, Dan Gilbert, and Marc Lasry as well as Winn’s Mirasol Capital and Baillie Gifford—will accelerate growth to expand Cosm’s operations across the U.S. and, eventually, internationally.
There are up to eight Cosm locations “in the hopper at various stages,” Terry said; a third Cosm in Atlanta is slated to open in 2026, while a fourth in Detroit was just announced. “We’ve got the backend built, we’ve got the whole supply-chain scaled. We are ready to roll out, and now it’s about finding the right sites with the right partners,” he added.
The current Cosm venues operate in upscale, destination retail and sports locations, but future locations in smaller cities may have more modest footprints and lower costs. And Cosm, like any consumer-facing business, would obviously be vulnerable to an economic downturn or pullback in discretionary spending.
Terry contends they don’t have a direct competitor, although he recognizes fans have growing options, such as the Las Vegas Sphere, attending games, Imax movies, and the ever-improving home viewing experience: “I think we’re competing for share of time, for whenever you want to go out and do something. We want to be in that mindshare of you can do A, B, or Cosm.”
