It’s an hour before the action starts at Old Trafford, Manchester’s famous football pitch in England, and I’ve got the best seat in the house. I’m right above a corner flag, sitting low and watching the deep green grass roll away into the seats on the other side. Players are milling about, the stands are filling up, and someone just handed me a beer.

The only downside to the drink is that it’s 7 a.m. in Inglewood where I’m sitting. I’ve managed to secure my impeccable vantage point solely because I’m not at Old Trafford at all. I’m inside Los Angeles’ new immersive sports-watching dome named Cosm. From the second-floor balcony inside the darkened building, rows of black booths and small tables fan out toward the edges, each with a nearly uninterrupted view of a seamless and curving 9,600-square-foot, 8K-resolution screen. If I tilt my head or dart my eyes in any direction, I see yet more screen, yet more Old Trafford grass.

It’s natural, as everyone has already been doing, to compare Cosm to Sphere, Las Vegas’ famously round and digitally enhanced music venue that is just as transportive. I’ll go a step beyond that analogy to say this: In the current sports-watching market, nothing else is like Cosm. The venue is an absolute game-changer for fans eager (and willing to pay) to get even closer to the action.

A recent UFC event at domed sports-watching venue Cosm in Los Angeles.

At its best, Cosm’s floor-to-ceiling screen gives anyone with a seat the opportunity to embrace a face full of on-the-field action at such high quality that it can be staggering, almost overwhelming at times — so just be sure to hold on tight, to the handrails and to your wallets.

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To see just how popular the month-old Cosm really is, I set off at 6 a.m. from my house on a sunny Sunday morning. English Premier League soccer teams Manchester United and Liverpool were squaring off in a heated matchup, and if anyone is willing to spend money to see their team kick a ball around a pitch in the early morning while drinking pricey beers, it’s these two fan bases. Sure enough, as I pulled up to the venue — nestled directly between $5.5 billion SoFi Stadium and the Clippers’ new Intuit Dome — there was already a queue of jersey-sporting fans ready to flash their QR codes for entry.

That was good news, I figured. Stadiums and sporting events are at their best when the fan bases are engaged, shouting at poor referee calls and high-fiving strangers when more points appear on the scoreboard. Despite the early hour, the place was packing in nicely.

Crowds vie for limited views on the top floor at Cosm in Inglewood near Los Angeles.

Technically, Cosm offers three experiences: The first is a tall, open room called the Hall, which is essentially a glossy sports bar with tiered booths and long tables. A 150-foot-long band of screen wraps the room like a scrolling marquee, allowing for multiple video feeds to show simultaneously. There’s also a somewhat generic rooftop called the Deck with regular mounted TVs that sits just beneath the noisy LAX........

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