The future of watching football is here: FourFourTwo traveled to Los Angeles to watch a Premier League game at Cosm and experience shared reality first hand

The crowd hold their breath as Leandro Trossard looks to find space on the edge of the area. Going one way and then the other, the anticipation grows further as the Belgian takes aim, before rocketing the ball into the corner to put Arsenal ahead at Sunderland.

All around FourFourTwo the crowd are going mad, but this isn’t the away end at the Stadium of Light, nor is it a pub in North London. This is more than 5,000 miles away in Los Angeles.

FFT have joined hundreds of fans who have gathered at 9.30am at Cosm, in Hollywood Park, to watch the Premier League fixture on an 87-foot diameter, 12K+, dome-shaped LED screen. You really feel like you’re inside the stadium itself – albeit it’s slightly warmer than the North East and the food is better.

As the Arsenal players celebrate, they seem so close that it almost feels like you could join them yourself, or at least shout something they’ll hear. Quickly, though, you sit back down on your leather sofa, pick up your drink and remember you’re not actually there.

This isn’t like watching football on TV at home – having previously seen videos of the gigantic Cosm screen on social media, FFT are now savouring this new shared reality experience for ourselves, and fast realising that it takes witnessing live sport from afar to a completely new level. It’s fresh, it’s new, it’s immersive. If you’ve ever slipped on a virtual reality headset, it’s a feeling akin to that – just without the clunky noggin-wear and with friends around you, experiencing the same thing at the same time.

The venue has a number of exclusive camera angles that make it so unique. One is on the halfway line, which makes you feel like that’s your seat inside the stadium – if you turn to either side, you can even see the people sat next to you inside the ground, 5,000 miles away.

The main difference for this game is that when Brian Brobbey nets the Black Cats’ stoppage-time equaliser, 95 per cent of the Stadium of Light loses their minds, but only a small pocket of fans celebrate in Los Angeles, amid a sea of disappointed Arsenal supporters.

The other difference is the full menu of food and drinks that can be ordered on an app, and brought straight to your seat while the game is going on.

The brainwave behind this new way of watching sport originated from looking at planetariums, but instead of staring up at a dome-shaped ceiling, the dome was flipped on its side and lit with LEDs, so you can see it during the day without the need for darkness. Cosm was born.

“The first time I experienced Cosm, I felt like a three-year-old discovering bubbles for the first time,” says Cosm marketing manager Mazen Alawar. “I was blown away. I’d seen the videos and thought I understood the concept, but it’s not until you experience it that you really understand what it is.

“It was conceived by our chairman Steve Winn, because of his love for planetariums – Cosm is the world’s largest planetarium company. They’re the OG immersive experience, so we started out by taking people to space, and now we take them everywhere – including the sidelines of some of the world’s most sought-after football matches and other sporting events.”

It was the shared experience of watching sport that Cosm was keen to expand on.

“There’s so much investment in individual experiences when it comes to technology and sports – watching on an app, streaming on your phone,” adds Alawar. “But the communal experiences are what make sport special. We looked at how we could transform the stadium and expand on the communal sports experience, which is how we landedon creating Cosm.

“We produce the games, and it’s the same production you’d do for virtual reality – it’s a fisheye lens that captures spherically. But we can produce linear TV, too. We have around five cameras on the ground at any event that we show, plus two to three people there overseeing everything.”

Premier League and Champions League games are big crowd-pullers, but the Hollywood Park venue has also shown Wrexham games – pulling in an A-list crowd, thanks to the Welsh club’s co-owner, Rob McElhenney. “Rob came down to watch a Wrexham game and brought the whole cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with him,”

Alawar explains – filming for the sitcom takes place in both Philadelphia and LA. “I had a very surreal moment where I was walking Danny DeVito to the bathroom, getting lectured on camera positions. I had to keep reminding myself Danny was a movie legend and knew what he was talking about!

“Cosm itself has become a tourist destination in LA now – people seek us out and want to watch a game here. We had Matt Lucas here for an Arsenal game – he said he’d seen it online and wanted to experience it for himself.”

Games involving Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea or Spurs bring the majority of fans, with unsociable 4.30am kick-off times – LA is eight hours behind the UK – not proving a hindrance. There’s no confirmation yet, but Cosm may show World Cup matches this summer, and already have deals in place to screen NFL, basketball, baseball, tennis and UFC, plus a number of other sports.

They have an additional venue in Dallas, too, with others in Detroit and Atlanta opening soon – as well as plans to branch out beyond the United States. “Expanding Cosm internationally makes sense,” Alawar says. “Now we know we have a proven concept, we’re trying to scale that up. Unfortunately real estate happens a lot slower than media, but the UK makes sense – and not just in London, but Manchester, Birmingham and other cities as well.

“We know the best experience of watching sport is in the stadium with fans, but there are only so many seats, so if you can’t be there, the next best experience is being at Cosm, close to the action with your friends.

“As for the World Cup, we always strive to show the biggest sporting events – there are few bigger moments in sport than the World Cup. We’re working to understand and get all the details of what the World Cup fanzone will look like in LA, but we expect a lot of activity.”

Tickets for Cosm in Los Angeles start at $41 (£30), making it more affordable than a seat inside the ground for a top fixture.

Just a few hundred yards away sits the 70,000-capacity SoFi Stadium, which will play host to eight matches at the World Cup, including the USA’s first game against Paraguay on June 12. The £4 billion venue opened in 2020 and was privately financed by Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke, who is also CEO of the Los Angeles Rams, the NFL team who play their home matches at the arena.

FFT tour the stadium during our visit and find it one of the most impressive in the world – a huge canopy coversthe venue, with the design providing inspiration for Manchester United’s own planned new home. Beneath, a 70,000 square foot oval-shaped, double-sided infinity screen also hangs over the pitch, giving fans both a sensory overload and access to a whole host of in-game info.

“The infinity screen will entertain, educate and allow fans to experience so much more you don’t traditionally see at any other football stadium,”

Otto Benedict, the venue’s senior vice president of facilities and operations, tells FFT. “FIFA will be able to push so much other content that isn’t merely about what’s happening on the field. Fans will be able to get stuff from the screen to their phone and interact during the game in a way that hasn’t happened before.”

On his first visit to the stadium recently, former Spurs hero Son Heung-min – now with LAFC – was in awe. “I’d never seen a better stadium than Tottenham’s, but this one is so much better,” he said.

As well as the Los Angeles Rams, the SoFi Stadium is home to another NFL team, the Los Angeles Chargers, and had been talked about as a contender to stage the World Cup final. When the US last hosted the tournament in 1994, the final was held at Los Angeles’ Rose Bowl, but this time New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium – home to both the New York Giants and the New York Jets in the NFL – has got the nod instead.

Benedict hopes that the final won’t be affected by inclement weather – a number of matches at last summer’s Club World Cup, including the game between Palmeiras and Al Ahly held at MetLife Stadium, faced lengthy delays because of thunderstorms near the venues. Three summers ago, the SoFi Stadium successfully hosted the 2023 Gold Cup Final between Mexico and Panama in front of a capacity crowd.

“What MetLife does is very similar to us – they are the only other two-team NFL stadium, and they put on just as many concerts and special events aswe do,” Benedict says. “In New York at that time of the summer though, you’re susceptible to thunderstorms and other things that can delay games, whereas here in Los Angeles, we have the roof structure over our stadium, so we’re not impacted by the weather. We hope for good weather for everybody, but I know that we’ve got an extra little level of protection here.”

The SoFi Stadium will instead host a quarter-final, potentially featuring reigning European champions Spain. The World Cup final may be more than 2,500 miles away on the other side of the country on July 19, but all being well, fans can head along to Cosm instead – and for a significantly cheaper way of feeling like they’re inside the stadium for the showpiece match.

After all, if they can make residents of LA believe they’re in Sunderland, they can pretty much do anything.

For more information on Los Angeles, visit discoverlosangeles.com