Florida's Major League Baseball team, the Tampa Bay Rays, has started to employ virtual reality to hold batting practice. The team makes use of a system called iCube from EON Sports which simulates facing pitches in a virtual batting cage.
The main advantage of using virtual reality is to
reduce the amount of physical wear and tear professionals
experience during practice sessions. Another mooted benefit is the ability
to have batters experience different pitchers from the league in
virtual reality.
Brendan Reilly, EON Sports VR's CEO, notes
that while virtual reality cannot match the physical experience completely,
the technology “enables players to maximize repetitions and their performance
in the batters' box. This is invaluable technology for
teams looking to gain a competitive edge against their opponents.”