OT: What does the future hold for sports?

[Bruins1233]

I think we'll see more sports on phones and tablets instead of TV as more people cut the cord. I don't think any sports leagues will fold but as more people choose to watch at home they're going to have find new ways to raise money as they'd lose ticket revenue.

If I had the money I would have season tickets to the Red Sox and Bruins (also if I lived within Commutable distance of Fenway or the Garden).
Being at games is so much better than watching on TV it isn't even close, however, I can not afford to spend $5,000 on tickets.

 

[triggrman]

I'm a baseball coach for a now 12u baseball program. I used to struggle in the fall to keep players playing as football season started and most of my players played both. This past season, that wasn't an issue, in fact, our fall tournaments which are usually hit or miss were all packed this season.

More and more kids are being pushed away from football by their parents. I don't have the raw data for across the country, but as a guy in West Murfreesboro, to my kids, baseball and soccer are on the rise, football is on a decline.

 

[Burke the Legend]

Soccer is pretty bad too from what I've read when it comes to heading the ball but it doesn't get the attention that football and hockey do because it's less spectacular.

 

[KevFu]

And i could see a World Leagues. In every sport. Transport between Europe, Asia and America will be much faster. 1-2 hours between London and New York (if the ocean will not eat this city).

That’s interesting to consider. Let me think this through…


The speed of commuter air travel is limited by technology and physics; but BEFORE those become a factor, the main limitation is the PRICE OF THE PLANE.

The 747 and the AirBus A380 are the fastest commercial airplanes in use, and they rank 6th and 4th respectively in “all-time max speed.”

Those two are the biggest/fastest in use commercially, because the 747 costs about $7 million per plane, and A380 about $14 million per plane.

Everything else in the Top 5 All-Time are:
Smaller private planes and cost between $20 (#5) and $36 million (#3).

Only NBA teams could possibly fit their travel party on a plane of that sized.

AND they only go 24 to 86 mph faster than a 747 or A380; and that’s max cruising speeds. The first & last hour is gonna be about the same time, it’s the middle 5:27 that becomes 45 minutes shorter for a NY to London flight.

In order to have a BIG JET capable of carrying an entire team and support staff to road games for NHL, MLB or NFL teams; you’d need a plane that’s both big enough, and fast enough. And the only ones ever made were #2 and #1 on the list:


The Concorde’s max speed was 1341 mph, which is over DOUBLE the speed of the A380. They could do New York to London in 4 hours. But they stopped service because it wasn’t working economically. The planes were expensive, tickets were expensive (but actually inflated because of the perception that it was a luxury flight for uber rich people). And ultimately, few rich people were all going to the same place at once, so it made zero sense to operate the planes, which cost $140 million in today’s US dollars.

There was a plane faster than the Concorde, but it only took 44 flights because of safety concerns.


So, could a professional league with an insane amount of money (NFL) resurrect the Concorde, buy a small fleet and use them to charter? Absolutely.

But there’s no way they’re going to be 2 hour flights around the globe, because there’s so many thousands of slower and cheaper planes in the air carrying more people, that keeping all of THEM the hell out of the way of a plane going 4 to 6 times as fast isn’t feasible.

Soccer is pretty bad too from what I've read when it comes to heading the ball but it doesn't get the attention that football and hockey do because it's less spectacular.

It’s not the heading of the ball that does the damage, it’s the CHALLENGES for headers where you knock your skull against someone else’s shoulder, elbow or skull that causes soccer’s concussion problems. (Yes, OF COURSE heading the ball does damage over time. But it’s like saying “hockey skates damage players shins” when the real culprit is blocking shots.

 

[BattleBorn]

The aviation nerd in me wants to make so many corrections in your post, but your point remains valid regardless.

 

[Individual 1]

It’s not the heading of the ball that does the damage, it’s the CHALLENGES for headers where you knock your skull against someone else’s shoulder, elbow or skull that causes soccer’s concussion problems. (Yes, OF COURSE heading the ball does damage over time. But it’s like saying “hockey skates damage players shins†when the real culprit is blocking shots.

"Heading was the most common soccer-specific activity, responsible for 30.6% of boys’ concussions and 25.3% of girls’ concussions."

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2375128

"professionals who do the most heading perform worse on cognitive tests than those who do less. "

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-soccer-headers-concussion-met-20150428-story.html

 

[Killion]

"Heading was the most common soccer-specific activity, responsible for 30.6% of boys’ concussions and 25.3% of girls’ concussions."

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2375128

"professionals who do the most heading perform worse on cognitive tests than those who do less. "

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-soccer-headers-concussion-met-20150428-story.html

Thank you. Not only for your common sense but in providing the link that absolutely refutes so erroneous a claim. Absolutely ridiculous. "Heading doesnt cause concussion"? [MOD]

 

[IamherefortheFinn]

The aviation nerd in me wants to make so many corrections in your post, but your point remains valid regardless.

Please do, i'm interested in the subject.

Also how much would it cost to keep a Concorde as a private charter jet for a hockey team?

 

[cutchemist42]

That’s interesting to consider. Let me think this through…


The speed of commuter air travel is limited by technology and physics; but BEFORE those become a factor, the main limitation is the PRICE OF THE PLANE.

The 747 and the AirBus A380 are the fastest commercial airplanes in use, and they rank 6th and 4th respectively in “all-time max speed.”

Those two are the biggest/fastest in use commercially, because the 747 costs about $7 million per plane, and A380 about $14 million per plane.

Everything else in the Top 5 All-Time are:
Smaller private planes and cost between $20 (#5) and $36 million (#3).

Only NBA teams could possibly fit their travel party on a plane of that sized.

AND they only go 24 to 86 mph faster than a 747 or A380; and that’s max cruising speeds. The first & last hour is gonna be about the same time, it’s the middle 5:27 that becomes 45 minutes shorter for a NY to London flight.

In order to have a BIG JET capable of carrying an entire team and support staff to road games for NHL, MLB or NFL teams; you’d need a plane that’s both big enough, and fast enough. And the only ones ever made were #2 and #1 on the list:


The Concorde’s max speed was 1341 mph, which is over DOUBLE the speed of the A380. They could do New York to London in 4 hours. But they stopped service because it wasn’t working economically. The planes were expensive, tickets were expensive (but actually inflated because of the perception that it was a luxury flight for uber rich people). And ultimately, few rich people were all going to the same place at once, so it made zero sense to operate the planes, which cost $140 million in today’s US dollars.

There was a plane faster than the Concorde, but it only took 44 flights because of safety concerns.


So, could a professional league with an insane amount of money (NFL) resurrect the Concorde, buy a small fleet and use them to charter? Absolutely.

But there’s no way they’re going to be 2 hour flights around the globe, because there’s so many thousands of slower and cheaper planes in the air carrying more people, that keeping all of THEM the hell out of the way of a plane going 4 to 6 times as fast isn’t feasible.





It’s not the heading of the ball that does the damage, it’s the CHALLENGES for headers where you knock your skull against someone else’s shoulder, elbow or skull that causes soccer’s concussion problems. (Yes, OF COURSE heading the ball does damage over time. But it’s like saying “hockey skates damage players shins” when the real culprit is blocking shots.

I would think thats very feasible? All planes cant exceed an airspeed threshold depending on the area around an airport.

http://ww1.jeppesen.com/download/aopa/jul-aopa.pdf

After that, planes get separated quickly between low victor airways and high level jet airways. Why couldnt you just do what they did with Concorde? No commercial liner cruises that high so it basically you take up the dedicated Concorde tracks across the Atlantic.


Also, someone posted it already but I really dont think heading a soccer ball is as trivial as you say based on what I've read.

 

[alko]

That’s interesting to consider. Let me think this through…

Good points. But you worked only with data from past or from current time.
We speak about future. Future in 2050 or maybe 2100, as was mentioned in the first posts. With such fast technology progress in every way, i can see a chance, that there will be a cheap fly link with supersonic or faster plane in 50 years. Or maybe vacuum tunels under the see. As they plan now between LA and San Francisco.
Money? As i mentioned. with 10 billions of people, rich leagues will be even more rich. Maybe not NHL, but NFL or MLB for sure.

 

[KevFu]

The aviation nerd in me wants to make so many corrections in your post, but your point remains valid regardless.

I would think thats very feasible? All planes cant exceed an airspeed threshold depending on the area around an airport.

http://ww1.jeppesen.com/download/aopa/jul-aopa.pdf

After that, planes get separated quickly between low victor airways and high level jet airways. Why couldnt you just do what they did with Concorde? No commercial liner cruises that high so it basically you take up the dedicated Concorde tracks across the Atlantic.

I’m NOT an aviation nerd, I googled to get that and used common sense, and will clearly cede to more informed people.

So, yeah, I think it could be RIGHT that flight traffic could be aligned to allow those flights to go much faster than “normal†air traffic that’s cheaper/slower... but...

The main thing to remember with the Concorde is that the speed records were virtually exclusively international travel, over oceans. NY to London, Miami to Paris, etc.

The slowdown for those flights WILL occur if the flight is going inland, and having to descend through a dense traffic pattern of slower flights at lower altitude.

Back me up, Aviation Nerds!

 

[KevFu]

"Heading was the most common soccer-specific activity, responsible for 30.6% of boys’ concussions and 25.3% of girls’ concussions."

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2375128

"professionals who do the most heading perform worse on cognitive tests than those who do less. "

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-soccer-headers-concussion-met-20150428-story.html

Thank you. Not only for your common sense but in providing the link that absolutely refutes so erroneous a claim. Absolutely ridiculous. "Heading doesnt cause concussion"? [MOD]

Also, someone posted it already but I really dont think heading a soccer ball is as trivial as you say based on what I've read.

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Hold on one second. You guys are misinterpreting me. I’m not disputing “heading” leads to concussions. I’m talking about “We should be clear on the definition of HEADING here.”

The study is using “heading” as a general term for “arial play in soccer.”

I’m saying that “heading the ball” is one of four possible outcomes of the arial play.
- contact with another player (skull on skull, shoulder, elbow)
- contact with the ground when in-air contact alters your landing
- cleanly hitting nothing but the ball
- contact with nothing.

I clicked the link. It does NOT dispute what I said at all. It BACKS UP what I said:

Contact with another player was the most common mechanism of injury in heading-related concussions among boys (78.1%) and girls (61.9%).

OF COURSE, this is something that can’t be tested scientifically, because the players involved in these studies are doing all of those things constantly. The same players repeated hitting the ball with their head are the same people hitting other players, the ground, etc.

If it were possible to have actual control groups:
- Soccer players who hit other players and never actually head a ball ever (or hit the ground)
- Soccer players who hit the ground and never actually head the ball ever (or hit other players)
- Soccer players who head the ball and NEVER another player or the ground
- Soccer players who never make contact with anything

The data would likely back up my crazy claim that the most damaging plays are in that exact order.

This isn’t controversial, this is common sense based on the density of the ball vs the density of other players. And the frequency you hit other players vs land on your head.

 

[cutchemist42]

I’m NOT an aviation nerd, I googled to get that and used common sense, and will clearly cede to more informed people.

So, yeah, I think it could be RIGHT that flight traffic could be aligned to allow those flights to go much faster than “normal” air traffic that’s cheaper/slower... but...

The main thing to remember with the Concorde is that the speed records were virtually exclusively international travel, over oceans. NY to London, Miami to Paris, etc.

The slowdown for those flights WILL occur if the flight is going inland, and having to descend through a dense traffic pattern of slower flights at lower altitude.

Back me up, Aviation Nerds!

Im not 100% sure on this but.........It is interesting about Concorde, a big contention was about the sonic boom it produced, which they tested over inland which was argued across a few American governments over its time. I believe Concorde had one flight over land from the UK to Singapore.

I would guess that if you asked for stories on handling Concorde arrivals, it was probably fairly easy because it really wasnt that frequent a flight. For simplicity sake, its about 250knots at about 10,000 above ground, so handling one plane coming down from 50,000 every few days that is governed by that same speed limit doesnt sound that complicated to me. The one thing Id like to know is what Concorde's descent path/speeds were.

Because of the speed of Concorde, I bet you would need supersonic dedicated airways across the USA if something like that ever got produced. The closing speed would be scary to handle if they shared the same airways as 737s I'd imagine.

If you're curious you can see them at https://skyvector.com/. Click on a section of the map in the USA and click "World Hi" which is any altitude above 18,000.

 

[BattleBorn]

I’m NOT an aviation nerd, I googled to get that and used common sense, and will clearly cede to more informed people.

So, yeah, I think it could be RIGHT that flight traffic could be aligned to allow those flights to go much faster than “normal” air traffic that’s cheaper/slower... but...

The main thing to remember with the Concorde is that the speed records were virtually exclusively international travel, over oceans. NY to London, Miami to Paris, etc.

The slowdown for those flights WILL occur if the flight is going inland, and having to descend through a dense traffic pattern of slower flights at lower altitude.

Back me up, Aviation Nerds!

Here's the thing with the Concorde, it's nearly 50 years old.

It's a fairly expensive/complicated aircraft and they only made (I think) 15 of them. It's not a coincidence that the only airlines to operate them are the flagship airlines of the two countries involved in their development (British Airways and Air France.)

Further, you could only really travel at supersonic speeds while you aren't over populated areas or land. Other than that, it's pretty much a regular plane. So, for example while it may take 3.5 hours to get from New York to Paris in the Concorde, getting from (For example) Dallas to New York would take the an additional 3 hours or so. It's not a great option once you get inland due to the regulations. Further, it doesn't have the capability to go Transpacific, so essentially it's a North America/Europe exclusive aircraft.

My main issue with the original post on this subject was pricing. While it would make a lot of sense to pick up a nice fast plane for a team like a 747 or A380, they're ridiculously expensive. For example, an A380 (which is why more than any team would need) has a new price north of $450MM, or a little less than the entire Las Vegas team has costed thus far. If you were to somehow figure out a way of building a new Concorde you could likely expect to pay $800MM or more. They had a fairly low initial price when they were introduced because the French and British governments essentially subsidized the whole program. You wouldn't be likely to have the same benefit today.

Plus, you get the added benefit of performing all the maintenance on the airplane yourself. Let's just say there's a reason most teams charter flights instead of maintaining their own fleets and pilots. Add in the fact that the Concorde required three crew members in the cockpit (instead of the usual two) and your personnel costs go up 50% right off the bat.

When it comes to getting the Concorde into the pattern around the airport it wasn't super complicated, it's slightly quicker on approach than other planes, but it's easily handled. Same thing with departure. If there's a reason to not fly the Concorde, getting it off the ground and back isn't it.

 

[cutchemist42]

Could a world league work if you only had the champion teams from different continents play each other in the Finals.

Just making this up here, but in the future the MLS and UEFA CL winner are equals in terms of money spent. The future CL and MLS are equal in quality from top to bottom. , The leagues agree that regular scheduling of games across the Atlantic is not possible. Due to this, the two finalists only play once they come out of NA and Europe.

Another scenario.....could you create a Euro-NFL division that cross the ocean once-twice to play in NA but mostly stays in Europe. That European winner is always guaranteed a playoff spot in NA.

Basically, could you create an off-shoot branded league in Europe of the NHL/NBA/NFL thats 95% confined to Europe until playoffs/finals?

 

[Mr. Fancy Pants]

Could a world league work if you only had the champion teams from different continents play each other in the Finals.

Just making this up here, but in the future the MLS and UEFA CL winner are equals in terms of money spent. The future CL and MLS are equal in quality from top to bottom. , The leagues agree that regular scheduling of games across the Atlantic is not possible. Due to this, the two finalists only play once they come out of NA and Europe.

Another scenario.....could you create a Euro-NFL division that cross the ocean once-twice to play in NA but mostly stays in Europe. That European winner is always guaranteed a playoff spot in NA.

Basically, could you create an off-shoot branded league in Europe of the NHL/NBA/NFL thats 95% confined to Europe until playoffs/finals?

In theory yes. The problem arises in the practicality. The NHLs largest expansion was 6 teams. To make this viable you'd have to have a similar number of teams in the European conference. How do you expand by 20-30 teams in a short time period?

 

[KevFu]

My main issue with the original post on this subject was pricing. While it would make a lot of sense to pick up a nice fast plane for a team like a 747 or A380, they're ridiculously expensive. For example, an A380 (which is why more than any team would need) has a new price north of $450MM, or a little less than the entire Las Vegas team has costed thus far.

Ok, the article I found on fastest planes had WAY incorrect plane cost data then. It had the A380 at $14 million and the 747 at $7 million.

But I agree with you; that was one of my three points.

 

[Zegras Zebra]

I'm going to start with my prediction of where the future of each of the major North American sports will go, then mention some of the factors which may affect them including globalization. I may inadvertently answer some of the questions asked in the OP. I'm not going to mention many specific dates until the end because its hard to put a timetable on when things will happen.

Football (American): Straight up I don't think the NFL will exist in 2100, or maybe even 2050 for that matter. At least not as the multi-billion dollar empire it is today. The concussion issue is going to slowly kill the league as the years go by as today's parents are becoming more and more weary of letting their kids play football. As the game tries to become safer taking away some of the interesting factors that make the game appealing combined with a lack of elite players from a declining number of participants will eventually be its downfall. I think the league still has about 10 more years before these factors really begin to kick in, and the leagues revenue begins to nosedive. Eventually it will lead to NFL franchises folding and the game will become more of a regional sport in the south eastern United States, Texas and Oklahoma. I wouldn't be surprised if the sport will become banned by the United States government if the sport cannot become safer.

The CFL will die at least 10 years before the NFL due to a lack of players. I could see college football continuing in a non-contact version mostly in a intramural format, maybe with some school vs. school competition, but not close to the 100,000 people stadium spectacle it is today.

Baseball: Maybe the sport can gain some ground in Asia (Japan, Korea, China, the Philippians), and maybe Central and South America, but I can't see the sport becoming a big deal in Europe or Africa in the future. I see it as being a pretty much stagnant sport which stands to gain a bit of interest from the decline of football in North America.

Basketball: I think basketball has the potential for more global growth than any of the other major North American team sports. With the decline of football in the USA, some of the athletes will jump over to basketball, but the biggest amount of growth will be in the emerging Asian markets which are beginning to become more interested in the sport. Australia and Western Europe are also taking an interest so it is conceivable that Basketball may be the second most popular sport in the world by 2100. At this time there are no major injury epidemics that could potentially hurt its future compared to other team sports. Maybe the Chinese league or a European Super League can emerge as high quality leagues, but I can't see anything catching the NBA in quality in the next century. The USA will still be a powerhouse, but over time other countries will be better able to compete against them to the point where they have a legitimate chance of winning a gold medal against the USA in major tournaments such as the Olympics.

Hockey: I don't think I can accurately predict where hockey will be in the year 2100. It is possible like football it won't exist because of injury concerns. Its possible hockey breaks out and becomes a major international sport in places that are not traditional hockey hotbeds such as Southern Europe, Eastern Asia, and maybe even South America if marketed too correctly. The answer is probably in between the two extremes where it makes some gains in European countries with snow such as England, The Netherlands, and Italy but is largely dependent on the traditional hockey markets of Canada, the Northern USA, Russia, the Nordic countries, and a few central European countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia. With the possible corruption of the KHL I can't see a rival league rising up to beat the NHL in quality any time soon. I think the league will expand across North America and have close to 50 teams, as more markets will be able to support NHL hockey by then due to population increase, some with multiple franchises such as Toronto and Montreal. Its possible they create a European division to prevent a European Super League from forming that doesn't play against the North American teams until the playoffs. I still see Canada and the other powers dominating international competition, but the second tier will become more competitive with the elite countries. Unfortunately, with the sport being so expensive to play for families I'm worried eventually it will become a game that only the wealthy can afford to play, preventing further growth of the game. Also hitting will probably be phased out eventually, but fan support won't decrease as drastically as in football because the game can still be entertaining without hitting (at least in my opinion).

Soccer: As by far the most globalized sport in the world I can see the sport going in several directions. First I can see the formation of a North American style super league where all of Europe's best teams play each other exclusively potentially killing most if not all of the smaller clubs in Europe as the 30 or so best clubs poach every great player in the world, stunting the growth of the game in other parts of the world, especially North America. However with Soccer's globalized fanbase what I think will eventually happen will be the creation of a globalized playoff system consisting of anywhere from 64 to 128 clubs world wide. This will result in leagues merging (ex. the Premier League, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish leagues combine to create a super league (Ok the Premier League with Celtic and Rangers), The German, Swiss, and Austrian Leagues could join, The French, Belgian, and Dutch Leagues could join, etc...). I think this will result in more regionalized leagues where cities in with a few smaller clubs those small clubs may merge to become more competitive on the world stage (ex.Austria Wien and Rapid Wien could merge to form FC Vienna). It could work if each league compressed it's playing schedule and the Cup competitions were eliminated (ex. FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Champions League). With American football becoming extinct I could see a lot of the athletes that would play football go to soccer simply because it is a cheap sport to play at the youth level. This will eventually result in the MLS becoming increasingly competitive with European Leagues. The emergence of money in China and other developing countries will increase the prominence of their leagues too making the global playoffs more wide open on a global scale, not only in Europe. I think these playoff games could be played on neutral fields anywhere around the world (where as in the league the clubs will still have a normal home field advantage). Chelsea could play NYCFC in Shanghai, FC Tokyo could play Barcelona in Johannesburg, Manchester United could play River Plate in Sydney, and Juventus could play FC Beijing in Wembly all on the same day. If anyone asks I can explain further. With the amount of interest in the United States increasing, I could see them becoming a world powerhouse, winning multiple FIFA World Cups by the year 2100.

Rugby: May become more popular in the United States after the demise of football because of its similarity in many aspects to football. A few athletes will make the switch to the game. However, I can only see it a regional game popular in Oceania, Western Europe, South Africa, and Argentina. Still with all the contact the game may be drastically different than in its current form in 2100, or it may cease to exist altogether.

Team sports ranked in terms of popularity by the year 2100: Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Rugby, American Football (deceased)

Factors that significantly affect the future of sport:

Viewing Mediums: Will sports still be watched on network tv like today in the year 2100? I doubt it. With the advances in smart phone technology and in virtual reality the way the average person consumes sports will change drastically over the next decade even. I'm not sure if we can even comprehend what technology will be available to view sports in 2100. Personally, I don't think network tv will exist anymore and everything will be owned by one entity that will force consumers to pay a fortune to view sports on their personal devices, but they will have the option of viewing any game from any televised sport in the world.

Political Relations: With the globalization of society how will political pressures interact with each other and how will this affect international sports competitions. Ex. if the continent of Europe decides to become one political entity, how would that affect sports in Europe? Would future wars or international conflicts affect sports like some examples in the past? Probably.

Growing population: With the global population expected to far exceed 10 billion people by 2100, will that growth translate into larger sports markets in developing nations such as China and India. In my opinion almost certainly yes.

In game experience: Will more people or less people attend sporting events in the future? I can see this going both ways depending on the region of the world they live in. Some places may be able to build upwards of 300,000+ seat stadiums, others it may be less than 1,000 for major sporting events. I really can't speculate to much on this issue.

Activity of young people: Are too many young people being inactive to the point where it will affect the number of professional athletes in the future? I don't think so, but it may result in some areas developing more athletes than others simply because of the health of the people in those regions.

Genetic advances: As more and more people move and have children with people of other races will the next generation have the potential to be better athletes than us? Yes, the next generation of people will be better athletes partially due to diversifying the gene pool.

Will other mediums become more preferable to the public to put their money towards than watching sports? Possibly, but there is always going to be a group of people that enjoy watching others compete against each other in various games, going back to the ancient Greeks with the Olympic Games, to the Roman Gladiators at the Colosseum to our modern athletes today. Sure other forms of entertainment may appear, but sports in some form will probably always exist at some level.

 

[cutchemist42]

I'm going to start with my prediction of where the future of each of the major North American sports will go, then mention some of the factors which may affect them including globalization. I may inadvertently answer some of the questions asked in the OP. I'm not going to mention many specific dates until the end because its hard to put a timetable on when things will happen.
....

Yeah with the way less and less people are participating in sports, I feel pretty sure in saying sports wont be as important to the public as it is now. This is similar to how sports had a bigger hold of the public in the 50s/60s/70s.

What makes it so hard to predict is how escapist entertainment products develop. What if some form of VR is created that stimulates us in ways that watching sports never could accomplish? A VR that puts in the SCF instead of watching it.

I still think if hockey can have a billion dollar league with its small talent pool, that football could survive on something similar. I also think rugby and American football's health problems in the future are much more related than not.

 

[IU Hawks fan]

...
For example, in the 1950s baseball had two eight-team leagues, each in the upper right quadrant of the US. No teams in the South or West. The Pacific Coast was growing and it looked like the PCL might become a third major league.

Next time they expand, MLB will be DOUBLE their 1950s numbers. When they expand again, they are going to have a MASSIVE ARGUMENT over the alignment. Because business owners want TV start times and no one wants to switch leagues.

And that would probably be when someone like me brings up revisionist history:

Wait, what if the PCL had become a third major league, expanded just as the AL & NL did? You’d have northern NL and AL clubs saying “We’ve ALWAYS been a National League or American League club! We can’t have radical realignment!” and you’d have teams in the West, Central and South teams saying “We don’t have that tradition, we just want better TV start times!” Which is the exact same thing we have now.

So have those those two alternate histories converge:

National League (10) - Washington, Philadelphia, NY Mets, Montreal, Atlanta (E) | Chi Cubs, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati (W)
American League (10) - NY Yankees, Baltimore, Boston, Toronto, Cleveland (E) | Detroit, Chi White Sox, Minnesota, Kansas City, Texas (W)
Federal League (10) - Houston, San Antonio, Charlotte, El Paso, Oklahoma City (N) | Tampa, Miami, Orlando, Havana, Santa Domingo (S)
Pacific League (10) - San Francisco, LA Dodgers, Arizona, San Diego Las Vegas (N) | Seattle, Oakland/San Jose, LA Angels, Colorado, Portland (A)

...

It used to be one third of Americans watched the World Series because it was on one of the THREE TV channels. And most people knew of sports stars because they were on the front page of the sports page, which was one of four sections of the paper.

Except the Athletics are a founding American League club

And the Giants & Dodgers have been in the NL for over 130 years.

 

[Zegras Zebra]

Yeah with the way less and less people are participating in sports, I feel pretty sure in saying sports wont be as important to the public as it is now. This is similar to how sports had a bigger hold of the public in the 50s/60s/70s.

What makes it so hard to predict is how escapist entertainment products develop. What if some form of VR is created that stimulates us in ways that watching sports never could accomplish? A VR that puts in the SCF instead of watching it.

I still think if hockey can have a billion dollar league with its small talent pool, that football could survive on something similar. I also think rugby and American football's health problems in the future are much more related than not.

The first thing I thought of when you mentioned a VR that could put you in the Stanley Cup Final was playing the EA Sports NHL games. If future technologies such as the Oculus system could somehow build on that VR experience to a new level it could definitely affect sports viewership in the future. I'm also curious what the future of other entertainment mediums such as the music, television, and movie industry will look like in the coming decades with more and more options to enjoy them whilst at the same time people are finding ways to enjoy these services while not paying for them through illegal downloading. This may bring down these industries in the future, or at least the smaller companies which may eventually limit our viewing/ listening options in the future.

I do agree that football and rugby players will suffer the same types of injuries and future health problems. I think football is under a far larger microscope for these types of injuries in North America compared to rugby which is why changes are more likely to come to football than rugby. Also it should be noted that since rugby is a much more international game than football that it would be more difficult for the opinions of one market to change the game compared to football which is essentially only popular in North America. Ultimately I think footballs downfall won't be the smaller population of players, it will be rule changes that will make the game significantly less violent (assuming they cannot make advances in concussion preventing technologies) which would alter how the game is looks and is played. This results in many of the factors that attracted people into becoming fans of football being removed from the game, meaning a large group of fans would decide to find these factors in other sports such as mixed martial arts, meaning that leagues like the NFL and CFL lose money and interest, possibly to the point where it becomes a more regionalized sport, and some franchises fold hurting the league even further. I probably should have emphasized this point more in my earlier post.

 

[KevFu]

I'm going to start with my prediction of where the future of each of the major North American sports will go, then mention some of the factors which may affect them including globalization. I may inadvertently answer some of the questions asked in the OP. I'm not going to mention many specific dates until the end because its hard to put a timetable on when things will happen.

I “generally†agree with most of your assessments. Football is going to need radical changes to compensate for the “safety for playersâ€

And I think Rugby is definitely a “safer†option. The Forward Pass made American Tackle Football a TV fan spectacle, and ultimately has created this situation. Someone made a really great point on talk radio that I heard once: Throwing it all the field spreads the defense, drops linebackers back and now you’ve got WR getting crushed over the middle AND RBs vs LB collisions after they ran at each other full speed from 15 yards away instead of 9.

Rugby is physical, has a lot of aspects of football, but because it’s padless and a ground game, it’s less “make yourself a projectile†and far less helmet to helmet. It’s popularity could really grow. I can visually SEE it growing in California as we speak.

However it would not surprise me if “Football†and the “NFL†don’t end up DECEASED, but gradual safety motivated changes morph what football is today into something so different it’s like watching grainy footage of leather-helmeted guys running the Wing-T. I DOUBT the NFL would go this way, but the smartest thing they could do is slowly morph the rules towards Rugby and co-opt Rugby’s growth. There’s multiple forms of Rugby (and Rugby, Soccer and American Tackle Football are all the evolution of the same sport)

Basketball, I just want to add that it is popular in inner cities AND it is popular in rural farmland. Warm weather like LA and cold weather like Iowa and Minnesota. Basketball will grow all over the globe.

Baseball is stagnant like you said, but I do think it has potential to become more “universal†in the sense that:
While there’s foreign players in the NBA and many of them are all-stars, the US whoops everyone in international competition, MLB has that kind of relationship with Asia (there’s Ichiro, but there isn’t an entire Japanese team of future HOF’ers like Ichiro). But many Latin American countries can take on the US in a fair fight. The Dominican Republic All-Stars are frequently “the favorite†for the WBC.

Internationally, baseball is more like hockey than baseball: (a couple powerhouses, 2-5 very good nations, and everyone else is bringing a couple stars and a bunch of guys who couldn’t play in the North American pro league). Which is also like women’s soccer WAS about 8 years ago. And women’s soccer is about to explode over (half) the globe now that Europe has accepted that women’s soccer is a THING.


As for soccer, I agree on the “number of directions†aspect. There’s lots of ways “domestic leagues†could be pushed from a financial standpoint.

But at the same time, you have to remember that the most powerful clubs in soccer became that BECAUSE THEY WIN THEIR LEAGUES. What makes Champions League in its current format so ridiculously profitable and smart is that those powerful teams get rich and strong by winning their domestic leagues, and then everyone pays a ton of money to watch them play each other.

If Champions League became a CLOSED league, where the top 20 clubs in the world (Or UEFA) played 38 matches, and only did domestic COMPETITIONS (like the FA Cup) without participating in the domestic LEAGUES, it would become like the NHL is: where everyone cares about the Top League and you NEED clubs in markets to get those viewers; and no one really cares about the lower leagues. (The England Championship league, below the EPL, had their latest 3-year TV deal be 26% less money than the previous 3-year contract. Interest is dwindling because the EPL has grown in popularity and sold its rights all over the world).

Your point about “domestic leagues merging†(and clubs merging) makes A LOT of sense. You could have the domestic leagues, selling to multiple countries and playing great football, AND retain the Champions League format (and open league formats). Basically it’s the consolidation of power similar to what the college conferences in the US are doing.


And of course, the safety issue with the NFL would be huge for MLS and enable them to make the switch to the global soccer calendar and take it to a level beyond what they are capable of now. And this would really jump-start your idea of domestic leagues merging, because MLS has Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto and is a closed system.

2014-15 numbers were the easiest table I could find… but total revenue for each league (I believe this chart is Euros?)
4.070 billion - England (EPL) 1st
2.053 billion - Spain (La Liga) 3rd
1.418 billion - France (Ligue 1) 5th

So, uh, France + Spain = just behind England. Obviously, revenues don’t work like that, but you take the smaller market clubs off the list and limit duplicated markets to 2 or 3 teams (crushing competition of the smaller clubs in those cities, making more fans for the big club), and sell the TV package to both countries, and have a product that is higher quality to sell world-wide.

(although a BIG reason the EPL is able to be sold internationally so well is because of the ability of so many to speak English, but I think it could work).

 

[alko]

Football (American): Straight up I don't think the NFL will exist in 2100, or maybe even 2050 for that matter. At least not as the multi-billion dollar empire it is today. The concussion issue is going to slowly kill the league as the years go by as today's parents are becoming more and more weary of letting their kids play football. As the game tries to become safer taking away some of the interesting factors that make the game appealing combined with a lack of elite players from a declining number of participants will eventually be its downfall. I think the league still has about 10 more years before these factors really begin to kick in, and the leagues...

I dont thik, that such large business as NFL will disappear. Maybe the quality will be a little bit lower, to the issues you mentioned. But there always will be a strong group of people, that will see this as the opportunity to earn big money. To flee from not very good social communities.

 

[KevFu]

Yeah with the way less and less people are participating in sports, I feel pretty sure in saying sports wont be as important to the public as it is now. This is similar to how sports had a bigger hold of the public in the 50s/60s/70s.

What makes it so hard to predict is how escapist entertainment products develop. What if some form of VR is created that stimulates us in ways that watching sports never could accomplish? A VR that puts in the SCF instead of watching it.

I still think if hockey can have a billion dollar league with its small talent pool, that football could survive on something similar. I also think rugby and American football's health problems in the future are much more related than not.

I don’t think VR is going to be a massive thing. We’ve been hearing about it for a LONG TIME. But looking over a long stretch of “future predictions” in my lifetime, a vast majority of predictions are “miss” for a simple reason.

People tend to imagine big things based on what we CAN’T DO NOW that would be COOL. In the 80s, every prediction about the future included phones adding video capabilities. Because it was the logical next step: We can TALK, but we can’t SEE. That would be cool — and YES, phones do have that (Skype, FaceTime) and smart TVs can bring that to “video walls” like some 80s movies had.

But what people missed was that the whole reason we called people was because it was faster and more convenient than writing people letters, sending telegrams and learning moorse code. We started calling people for INSTANT FEEDBACK. And that’s why TEXTING is a bazillion times more popular than Skyping/Facetiming people. Convenience. It’s TOTALLY convenient for you to send a text, because you don’t need the other person to be available and you can work YOUR END of the conversation around your schedule.

Being able to SEE the other person rarely adds convenience to a phone call.


I think VR suffers the same fate as 3D movies/TV, where the added INCONVENIENCE of putting on glasses takes something cool and immersive and makes it not worth to pay a lot of money for; and if you do buy it, you’ll find yourself just watching on your TV which is conveniently locked and loaded and ready for you without extra steps.

Except the Athletics are a founding American League club

And the Giants & Dodgers have been in the NL for over 130 years.

Those are both quite valid points, except:
A. The PHILADELPHIA Athletics were a founding AL club and
B. the LOS ANGELES Dodgers and SAN FRANCISCO Giants separated themselves by geography 58 years go.

The Giants and Dodgers tradition is against each other. Which would not change.

They’ve seen the addition of the Padres, Rockies and Diamondbacks.
And they were ALL heavily in favor of the 3-division format that gave them more games in the Pacific Time Zone against the new teams. As were Oakland and Anaheim, who Oakland and Anaheim who saw the addition of the Mariners, the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros, who switched leagues. All at the expense of games against the Central and the East.

They would see TV DOLLARS over tradition.

The Rockies & Diamondbacks have very little NL tradition. So little that Arizona didn’t vote on that realignment because they didn’t exist. Arizona made those Godawful uniforms because they HAVE to appeal to young kids to create fans as the adults grew up on other teams.
The Mariners have a moderate amount of AL tradition, but that doesn’t include winning the AL pennant ever.

My four “leagues” would be very much like divisions. If Houston can switch, why not Anaheim, Seattle and Oakland?

 

[cutchemist42]

I “generally” agree with most of your assessments. Football is going to need radical changes to compensate for the “safety for players”

And I think Rugby is definitely a “safer” option. The Forward Pass made American Tackle Football a TV fan spectacle, and ultimately has created this situation. Someone made a really great point on talk radio that I heard once: Throwing it all the field spreads the defense, drops linebackers back and now you’ve got WR getting crushed over the middle AND RBs vs LB collisions after they ran at each other full speed from 15 yards away instead of 9.

Rugby is physical, has a lot of aspects of football, but because it’s padless and a ground game, it’s less “make yourself a projectile” and far less helmet to helmet. It’s popularity could really grow. I can visually SEE it growing in California as we speak.

However it would not surprise me if “Football” and the “NFL” don’t end up DECEASED, but gradual safety motivated changes morph what football is today into something so different it’s like watching grainy footage of leather-helmeted guys running the Wing-T. I DOUBT the NFL would go this way, but the smartest thing they could do is slowly morph the rules towards Rugby and co-opt Rugby’s growth. There’s multiple forms of Rugby (and Rugby, Soccer and American Tackle Football are all the evolution of the same sport)
<snip>

Posted this before in the thread, but anyone here ever try to think about how you change football while maintaining elements that makes football the sport Americans watch over rugby? I personally find our football much more interesting than what I see from Union/League. I sometimes then wonder how the sport could be safer while maintaining what I like. (Barring some medical advances in the sciences)

-Maintaining the most interesting element to me, the forward pass situation while being safer? Something like eliminate slant/in routes over the middle by adjusting the hash marks and making that a no-pass zone?
-I love the resetting of the play on every down. League has something similar. I think this is easy to maintain.
-I still have never thought of a solution for solving the lineman problem which is the issue that never gets talked about.
-Eliminate kickoffs, I think this happens soon.
-Same field size, but less players. More room to make football moves, more room to avoid collisions. I dislike normal rugby, but loved what I saw from Rugby 7s in the Olympics.