Is the COSM sports experience worth the money?
It's the sports version of IMAX, but is it worth the cost?
In the Summer of 2024, COSM Los Angeles opened to the public in Inglewood
COSM is an immersive experience where you can be able to watch sports on a big dome-like screen. I was intrigued when I first saw this. I kept seeing TikTok ads, Instagram Reels ads, and a lot of marketing tactics.
My curiosity got the best of me, and as a sports media personality, knowing that one exists in Los Angeles, I had to go check it out.
The prospect of watching sports on a movie theater's life screen really struck a childhood memory of mine growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s big college basketball country, and I went to a school where we had to wear uniforms. However, during the ACC tournament, we got to dress up as our favorite college team, whether it’s Duke, NC State, UNC, or Wake Forest. What we did was take a field trip to a movie theater.
This movie theater, Raleighwood, and we would watch the ACC tournament on the movie theater screen for the entire day. Our school was small enough that we could fit entire grades of students in the theater, and it is easily one of the best memories I’ve had during my childhood. Whenever I tell people this story, they go, What now?
I went to COSM twice over the span of 5 to 6 months, and I really want to talk to you guys about the overall experience.
I want to cover as many aspects as possible because there are multiple COSM locations now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they keep expanding over time. There’s one in Los Angeles that just opened recently, and then there’s also one in Dallas, with Detroit and Atlanta coming soon.
Both of these times were vastly different experiences. The first time I reached out, I emailed them and was like, “Hey, I am a content creator.”
They comped me with tickets to check it out, but they did not ask for a review or anything.
The second time, I just bought tickets to COSM myself. This is not a sponsorship. This is not a review. I just want to talk about the experience.
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I feel like there have been people online who have seen me there and asked me how it was, so I wanted to be thorough.
COSM hosts many sporting events. Hockey, wrestling, basketball, baseball, UFC, you name it.
The main part of COSM is the dome.
The dome has three levels of seating. The first and second floor has most of the booths and tables, while the third floor has a couple of tables.
There’s a standing room only section that is beneficial for large crowds. When I first did COSM, I was level two. The second time, I picked the level three area.
Ticket prices usually vary by what the sport is and what teams are playing. When the Dodgers were playing, ticket prices rose way up because it’s in Los Angeles. It’s ideal for people who may not have been able to make Dodger Stadium.
COSM is located between SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome, so it’s a really popular part of town for people who attend sporting events
I’ve seen multiple fans of the Clippers go to COSM first for like a little pregame, watch the game there, and then walk to Intuit Dome for the Clippers game. When we went, the second-floor admission was $31, but the booth area that we were in was around $75-$100 each.
This is for entry, by the way. It’s not like a sports bar where you walk in with no cover.
Level two is a nice little booth, and we were able to order food directly to the table. We got the Korean barbecue nachos and mushroom flatbread.
The food and drink prices.
They’re not on the cheaper side, but if you have lived in Los Angeles or been to Los Angeles, you have seen way worse pricing. I think my main gripe with the prices is that I think the walk-in price should be way lower or non-existent.
It sometimes feels wild to pay $12 for the walk-in part of the place, before you even pay for drinks. I think it should be $5 or free. I think they’d make way more money through word of mouth.
There’s another part of COSM called the Hall, which is on the first floor. The Hall is like a giant river of TVs.
And I really appreciate that area because COSM focuses on one game, but the hall focuses on many different games.
So it really feels like you’re at a sports stock market. That’s not the word for it. It really feels like you’re at a sports headquarters where you can watch the game that you want to watch.
While that’s happening, the hall also shows other sports that are going on. Whatever sport is on. If you don’t want to watch just one event at the dome, you could get tickets to the table area at the entrance before the Dome area.
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We were there for NBA Opening Day in 2024, where it was Bucks vs Sixers. From what I saw there in Inglewood, there were a lot more Sixers fans than Bucks fans. When I went to the place, it had just opened. While it was packed, it wasn’t a fire hazard’s worth of people.
During the game, I saw Adam Silver there. It was on the same day as the Clippers’ first game at their new stadium, the Intuit Dome. I guess he came to check out the technology or something. I don’t know, he got a tour. I really wonder if this kind of sports tech can be beneficial to the leagues in the future.
I want to talk about the main viewer experience. For the basketball fan in me, it was an acquired taste.
It was something that I had to get used to while the game was going on because I really hadn’t sat that close to something since I watched Oppenheimer in theaters in the third row at 1030 in the morning, super hungover. So it was a lot of staring up because we were pretty close to the screen. It’s the same as not wanting to sit front row at the movie theater.
For how immersive the screen is, the broadcast seems to go by pretty fast.
The thing that got me is that they kept changing the camera angles, so it kept going from baseline camera angle to the sideline court-side camera angle. The baseline camera angle was awesome. It was fun being able to see Giannis dunk, and it feels like he’s right there. You can hear the crowd mics and everything; it’s immaculate.
They had audio from the Mike Breen and Doris Burke ESPN broadcast. Every time we had the baseline camera on, we were like, “This is the coolest thing ever”.
The sideline camera, however, got really disorienting, and I did not rock with that view at all. It felt like a 3D movie at times, and I fucking hate those.
I had my seat, but I was still allowed to roam around. I went down to the first floor. The first floor was like me at Oppenheimer in the third row, but the ball just moves too fast. In my opinion, they just need to do a baseline angle for basketball. The best experience for basketball was when I went to the third level because, you know, basketball is a sport where you want to see a lot of the court at the same time.
When I was on the third floor, I could just watch it like I was actually at a game. Maybe this is also just me not being used to sitting courtside (I’m not rich, lmao).
I’m not saying that it was a bad experience; I’m just saying that it was a lot to get used to during the game while the game was going on. I simply don’t go there enough to be used to it.
We asked our server for their opinion. about it, and they said that that was one of their first times that they’ve ever done basketball, obviously, because that was the start of the NBA season.
They said to come back for UFC because that’s more of a close shot event. I can 100% buy that because if you’re in the cage. I want to go there for football, soccer, baseball, and a ton of other sports to really see how that experience changes from sport to sport.
These are just a couple of nitpicks that are my personal opinion.
The second time I went to COSM was for the NCAA men’s Final Four, and that was a really different experience because that time, a lot more people were aware of the venue now.
I decided to go and watch Florida versus Auburn in the Final Four. This was a more lively atmosphere because there were Florida, Duke, and Auburn alumni.
Felt really different than the Milwaukee Bucks fans and Sixers fans in Los Angeles. The stakes being higher likely had a lot to do with that, so I won’t discount that.
LA is a good pro sports city, but I have to give credit to the college and alumni networks that hang out in bars all across the country.
We bought level three tickets and tried some different food this time around.
I had the Wagyu double cheese smash burger.
It was FIRE. Then we also had lemon pepper wings.
I think this was the better viewing experience of the two because the game was better.
This is college basketball at its peak. This time, I could tell that there were fewer camera changes, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Security is pretty chill, so as long as you’re not being a jerk and you’re just like, hey, I just want to see what this section looks like real quick, they’re going to be pretty chill about it.
The bathrooms?
Pretty clean. I love a clean bathroom. I don’t maybe I don’t know who that was for in this video, but I appreciate a good bathroom situation.
Cosm isn’t that close to where I live, but if I did live closer, I could see myself going there a lot more often. When I’m invited there, I prefer to just be on the third floor hanging out. There you have more obligation to roam and explore and check out the entire vast venue.
All in all.
I think it’s a really unique experience being able to watch sports on an IMAX-style sphere theater. There is a lot of potential for various events there. Beyond just sports, they’ve done movies and planetarium stuff as well. Overall, I enjoyed myself, and I think the two different times that I went, it seems like they’ve improved on certain aspects, and more importantly, they took feedback to keep trying to improve the experience.
I really can’t wait to go for other sports.