The Action Plan for Integrating Development of Virtual Reality and Industrial Applications (2022-2026) jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four departments recently make “virtual reality+sports health” as one of the application landing industry scenarios and clearly propose to focus on the development needs of big sports and big health, face sports goods, sports facilities, fitness software and platforms, and promote the compatibility and adaptation of virtual reality terminals and content, support virtual reality landing in outdoor and indoor, aerobic and anaerobic, single and multi-person, leisure and sports and other multiple sports fields, promote the application of virtual reality in training and events, create a digital, intelligent and immersive new sports operation solution combining online and offline to build a new business form of mass fitness. This may indicate that the metaverse era of sports will accelerate towards us.

Immersive experience is the landmark scene of metaverse, which is exactly the advantage of virtual reality products. In the case of tight urban sports land and limited outdoor sports due to epidemic situation, virtual reality products can bring more fitness and leisure options and better participation experience to the public with their advantages of being free from time and space limitations and being immersive, and have broad development space in the field of sports.

In recent years, the number of new scenarios unlocked by virtual reality in sports has been increasing. Taking advantage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Hebei has already begun to develop in the field of virtual reality sports fitness industry. Sports enterprises in Shijiazhuang, Langfang, Baoding and other places have produced VR ice and snow sports products like VR skating and VR skiing. The R&D project of VR ski simulator has been selected as the special project of Hebei Science and Technology Winter Olympics, and Xingtai VR ice and snow sports project has been selected as the demonstration project of Hebei sports industry.

However, Hebei virtual reality sports fitness products still have the problems of not many types, not wide application, and not high recognition. When many parts of China are competing to develop the virtual reality industry, Hebei’s virtual reality sports fitness industry, which started not late, needs further research and thinking on how to seize the momentum and achieve more development.

As for the market subject of virtual reality sports fitness industry, it is necessary to better serve the big goal of building a strong sports country (a strong sports province), introduce more professional and technical talents to support the development of the industry, strengthen the research around optimizing the effective adaptation of sports equipment, fitness software, sports facilities and virtual reality terminals, and solve key technical problems. It is essential to pay more attention to the hot outdoor sports fields such as public cycling, running, ice and snow, promote the R&D and design of multiple typical application scenarios such as digital cycling, digital running, digital ice and snow, and create hot products based on market demand.

Relevant government departments shall give more support to related enterprises and industries, create a good business environment, enable more policy guarantees, financial support, technical support and others to gather in related industries, and create industrial clusters with characteristics and advantages. At the same time, the demonstration and promotion of virtual reality products should be strengthened. Through holding virtual reality sports and health promotion experience activities, events and listing the related products in the purchase scope of sports and fitness equipment in schools and public fitness venues, virtual reality products should be better integrated into and served the public fitness so as to promote the development of related industries.