Inside the new tactile tech bringing basketball to blind and low-vision fans

Barclays Center in Brooklyn is abuzz as the Brooklyn Nets’s Jalen Wilson catches the ball, readies himself, and releases a contested three. The ball arcs high above the Knicks defender’s outstretched arms and swishes through the net. As the stadium erupts, Bryan Velazquez throws a fist in the air. Even though he is blind, he knows that his team just scored. He felt it on his fingertips.

Velazquez, who works as an outreach coordinator at Omnium Circus, is using a new kind of haptic device...