OT: What does the future hold for sports?

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Mr. Fancy Pants

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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.

Imagine this. You put on your VR glasses to watch a game and it is like you are actually in the arena in premium seats at centre ice. You can look around the arena and it's like you're there. You can turn on the announcers if you want or just listen to the crowd if you want.

Sure it's a little more incovenient to put on the glasses but no more than turning on the TV but the experience would be much much better.

Obviously, this would be a best case scenario. The NHL isn't exactly the best with technology so who knows if they can pull it off but I think most hockey fans would definitely be interested in something like this.
 

KevFu

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Imagine this. You put on your VR glasses to watch a game and it is like you are actually in the arena in premium seats at centre ice. You can look around the arena and it's like you're there. You can turn on the announcers if you want or just listen to the crowd if you want.

Sure it's a little more incovenient to put on the glasses but no more than turning on the TV but the experience would be much much better.

Obviously, this would be a best case scenario. The NHL isn't exactly the best with technology so who knows if they can pull it off but I think most hockey fans would definitely be interested in something like this.

Here's the thing with that though. In order to have that capability, you'd need cameras at that spot in the arena sending a digital image of everything your eyes could see or want to see by turning your head. A 360 cam at center ice always going in all directions so that each person can decide what to see by turning their head...

... so why couldn't that same technology work on a TV without glasses? You simply put the exact same tech that's in your headset/goggles that determines where your head is pointed into the remote control.

If your hand is on the remote, where you move the remote dictates whats on your screen. If you set the remote down, it defaults to following the puck.

In that scenario, you gonna put the glasses on, or are you going to even bother to hold the remote?
 

alko

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Here's the thing with that though. In order to have that capability, you'd need cameras at that spot in the arena sending a digital image of everything your eyes could see or want to see by turning your head. A 360 cam at center ice always going in all directions so that each person can decide what to see by turning their head...

... so why couldn't that same technology work on a TV without glasses? You simply put the exact same tech that's in your headset/goggles that determines where your head is pointed into the remote control.

If your hand is on the remote, where you move the remote dictates whats on your screen. If you set the remote down, it defaults to following the puck.

In that scenario, you gonna put the glasses on, or are you going to even bother to hold the remote?

There could be another scenario. To broadcast the game in 3D in every arena in the world.
So you will attend you arena and you will see on the ice, what is going on in game between Slovakia and Canada in arena 8000 km away.

Btw. Japan had this idea as one of the main points of their candidature for soccer World Cup in 2022.
 

cutchemist42

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I really didnt make my VR thing that serious, what I meant to say was that something could very well come along that only a few visionaries can think of that could further cut into someones entertainment dollar.

Sports has decreasingly been taking up less and less of the general population's interest, and its so incredibly hard what could come in the future to uproot it further.
 

KevFu

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I really didnt make my VR thing that serious, what I meant to say was that something could very well come along that only a few visionaries can think of that could further cut into someones entertainment dollar.

Sports has decreasingly been taking up less and less of the general population's interest, and its so incredibly hard what could come in the future to uproot it further.

Yeah, predicting the future is always a hilarious endeavor based on how much people got wrong.

I'm just saying that when you look BACK to previous predictions about "the future, all the way in the year 2016," the most common thing people get wrong is assuming "that would be cool" is going to win over "what's convenient"
 

patnyrnyg

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1. Yes

2. No. Except for the team giving up the 1 home game once every few years to play in a completely untouched market. i.e. Bengals playing a "home" game in London.

3. No. If anything, they will become more single purpose

4. Not much more than we have now. Soccer has their Champions League, that could grow to include more continents. Do not think the Hockey Champions League will ever go much beyond what it is now. At least not until another league gets on par with the NHL.

5. Depends on the League/Country. NA can have bigger leagues as the countries have more people and more bigger cities.

6. A few will dominate. Soccer will be tops in most countries, followed by Basketball.

7. Not sure what you mean by this
 

Hivemind

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It really depends on which of those 2030/2050/2100 dates we're talking about.

2030 is likely to be not all that different from today. This is where the television/streaming experience, cultural priorities, and globalization discussions come into play mostly. Different sports may be more or less popular, and the way we organize and experience them will change, but the general concept is unlikely to see a gigantic overhaul in the next 15 years.

2050 is starting to get further out there. Some much bigger picture ideas start to come into play. Geopolitically, it will have been a full century since the last massive shift (WWII), so it's likely there will be some sort of geopolitical change between now and then. That may impact what cultures are dominant, and what pass times are dominant alongside them. Further still, this is where more "science fiction" type ideas start cropping up. We already talk about modern athletes being bigger and faster than previous generations, and PEDs are already a hot button topic. What will that feeling be in 2050, with advances in biotechnology, virtual reality, genetics, and robotics? Will improvements be limited purely to better equipment? Will equipment be allowed to be "performance enhancing" or purely protective? Remember that the vast majority of athletes competing in 2050 haven't been born yet, so will "designer baby athletes" be a thing? Will genetic therapy replace PEDs? Will we simply begin ignoring human athletics as the primary form of sport all together, in favor of virtual and/or robotic competitors? eSports are already a rapidly growing industry, and the seeds of robotic competitions have been in place for two decades now.

2100 takes the post-human concepts of 2050 and shifts them from the emerging and transitory states into a much more mature state. By then, we could be very well on our way to a post-human society (at least in the developed world).


My more grounded prediction is that we're going to see eSports and other forms of competition continue to eat a larger and larger portion of the market share as we approach 2030 and 2050.
 

cutchemist42

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I have a question thinking more about certain sport's standings.

Every country has a sport that when most people think of the country can name the sport that defines the country, a sport that the country loves as a whole Other sports might be liked in those countries, but they are not the defining sport.

Canada-Hocey with other minor sports
USA-Football with many other minor sports
Lithunia-Basketball
India-Cricket
New Zealand-Rugby
Cuba-Baseball

Anyone see any sports replacing the defining sport of a country?

Ever since I read an article a while ago that made me believe this statement, that basketball is the most widely played sport that is the least loved with maybe only Lithunia/Phillippines/China being defined by it. Anyone see basketball replacing football in the USA? Anyone see basketball becoming a defining sport in any other countries?
 

Zegras Zebra

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May 7, 2016
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I have a question thinking more about certain sport's standings.

Every country has a sport that when most people think of the country can name the sport that defines the country, a sport that the country loves as a whole Other sports might be liked in those countries, but they are not the defining sport.

Canada-Hocey with other minor sports
USA-Football with many other minor sports
Lithunia-Basketball
India-Cricket
New Zealand-Rugby
Cuba-Baseball

Anyone see any sports replacing the defining sport of a country?

Ever since I read an article a while ago that made me believe this statement, that basketball is the most widely played sport that is the least loved with maybe only Lithunia/Phillippines/China being defined by it. Anyone see basketball replacing football in the USA? Anyone see basketball becoming a defining sport in any other countries?

Yeah, I can see basketball dethroning football in the USA eventually, especially with the coverage its star players always gets on ESPN.

As for other countries, besides the ones you listed the former Yugoslavian nations are pretty interested in basketball, but I can't see basketball dethroning soccer in any other European nations. Basketball seems to be pretty popular in Argentina, but soccer is king and they also are good at rugby. Australia has become a pretty prominent basketball nation, but it is probably behind rugby, cricket, and Aussie rules football and Olympic style swimming in popularity right now. Becoming more competitive with the USA on the international stage may shift the popularity of basketball in those regions, but its a bit of a stretch.
 

indigobuffalo

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2030 is already a crazy number. Can't begin to imagine what 2100 would likely look like.

If you follow guys like Ray Kurzweil, who are scientists that predict future trends in science and technology, we're about to hit a new dawn in the Age of Man.

By 2030 we should expect to have everyone connected to the internet via chips embedded in the brain.

Here's a prediction, no more arenas period.

Why bother? You'd have A computer chip in your brain capable of creating virtual reality overlays for your eyes and you could also get simulated nervous systems stimulation so you actually see and feel like you're sitting front row at any and every sporting event. Heck, you could even be "on the ice".

I think something you didn't even bring up is what we do with bio-engineered humans. Can they play in pro sports? If so they likely take over the game. Is that the same thing as PEDs? Who decides what's fair in that event?

Also, research into DNA is showing that very likely by the 2050 mark humans simply won't age anymore. Gene therapy will be able to rejuvenate the DNA and reset the aging clock indefinitely.

Lastly, we're super close to creating AI and that completely changes everything. Hard to say where the future is headed but I think the world will be quite different in even the next decade.
 

Smidster

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I think that sport is going to be one of those areas where change is actually going to be pretty slow.

To look forward to 2030 start by looking back to 2000 - what has happened over the past 15 years that may impact the next 15? In the grand scheme of things not an awful lot has changed - sure there have been changes (greater professionalism and technology) but at its core sport hasn't changed much with most of the same games being played and watched.

So while I think we will still be playing, and watching, the same sport in the future I think the way it is played will be different. The movement toward shorter formats for the viewer with a short attention span will continue (think 20/20 cricket or "Fast4" tennis). It would not surprise me greatly if in 25 years baseball games are 6 innings or 45 minute hockey games.

Personally I don't think that E-Sports will ever really reach the mainstream - we will always have the desire to compete and while perhaps e-sport will become the new "mental" games (think chess) there will always be physical competition as well.

All that being said it could be that these are the halcyon days for the economics of sport - salaries have increased massively on the basis of TV deals and mass advertising. It would not surprise me if we have reached the peak of the market and the economics have to adjust one way or another.

People have mentioned changes to the relative popularity of sports - that will continue to happen in line with changes to populations. There are many reasons but migration is one of the reasons Canada has become more of a basketball hotbed. In the medium term it is tough to see much change in the pecking order but in the longer term soccer and basketball must stand to gain at football's expense.
 

Tom ServoMST3K

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Nov 2, 2010
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I tried VR for the first time at the heritage classic

That will catch on, even if only for a premium audience. Honestly, if they could stream it right now at the quality they showed there, I would want it, and I only assume that the video will improve.
 

Bruins1233

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Apr 30, 2016
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I have a question thinking more about certain sport's standings.

Every country has a sport that when most people think of the country can name the sport that defines the country, a sport that the country loves as a whole Other sports might be liked in those countries, but they are not the defining sport.

Canada-Hocey with other minor sports
USA-Football with many other minor sports
Lithunia-Basketball
India-Cricket
New Zealand-Rugby
Cuba-Baseball

Anyone see any sports replacing the defining sport of a country?

Ever since I read an article a while ago that made me believe this statement, that basketball is the most widely played sport that is the least loved with maybe only Lithunia/Phillippines/China being defined by it. Anyone see basketball replacing football in the USA? Anyone see basketball becoming a defining sport in any other countries?
I think calling Football the defining sport in the US is sort of misleading. It isn't like the UK where the premiere league has no real competition, the MLB is about 2/3rd the size of the NFL, and the NBA is almost 1/2. Add in AAA, AA, and A, Southern Winter Leagues etc. Baseball probably competes with Football.
The US certainly has the most diverse sports scene in the world.
 

cutchemist42

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Anyone have any thoughts on the future of collegiate sports. If lots here think football dies, does that include CFB or just pro football?
 

BattleBorn

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Anyone have any thoughts on the future of collegiate sports. If lots here think football dies, does that include CFB or just pro football?

College football is under attack for reasons in addition to what's happening in the NFL. I personally think NFL players (and hockey players to a lesser extent) are compensated fairly well for the risk involved in their respective professions. However, there's going to certainly be inquiries into how to make it safer and that will certainly have a much greater impact on the college level where players are only really compensated with food, tuition, room and board, etc.

I don't think any sport dies, but a sport like football will certainly decline in popularity until technology and medical procedures catch up to the risks involved. For now, we'll make it less physical and (for most people) exciting.
 

Le Golie

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On the business side of things I've always wondered what a 'fan union' would look like.

With the ever growing influence of social media I think there is a legitimate possibility that one day, organized customer representatives take a third seat at the table with owners and players.
 

IamherefortheFinn

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May 24, 2015
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On the business side of things I've always wondered what a 'fan union' would look like.

With the ever growing influence of social media I think there is a legitimate possibility that one day, organized customer representatives take a third seat at the table with owners and players.

This is an interesting idea. In a local lesser extent something like this has all ready happened in Europe. For example when Jokerit hired Jere Karalahti, who is seen as a arc rivalry's HIFK's man, there were talks with the leadership of the fan club Eteläpääty. Karalahti even promised to strip naked to prove that he does not have a HIFK tattoo on him. :laugh:

The fan club opposed still but that didn't stop the club hiring Karalahti though. But i think that the fan clubs in other countries especially in football have bigger influence on the team.
 

Zegras Zebra

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May 7, 2016
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Anyone have any thoughts on the future of collegiate sports. If lots here think football dies, does that include CFB or just pro football?

College sports in general are at a strange place right now. More and more revenue is being generated, but it is mostly coming from football and basketball with the majority of the revenue coming from the power schools/ conferences of those respective sports. With the idealism of amateurism being called into question, college sports are quite fickle at this point in time. Lets look at how I think things will end up in the major sports:

College Football: Since everything is currently controlled by the major conferences instead of the NCAA, If a college isn't affiliated with one of the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Pac 12, Big XII they are in a much worse competitive and financial place. A few years back the major conferences started raiding the smaller conferences of schools in key markets (ex. Rutgers for the New York City/ New Jersey market), resulting in the football death of the Big East and to some extent the WAC. I could see this trend continuing every few years until we are left with 3 or 4 major conferences with upwards of 24 teams each. If youth participation in football begins to fall, and the tv money dries up, then its possible the smaller schools begin to abandon their football programs as it starts to lose major money for their university. College football may be a microcosm of the North American free trade system's affect on businesses based on their size and marketing potential.

College Basketball: The Men's NCAA Basketball tournament will continue to bring in very large television money to the schools for many years to come. The conferences will obviously be affected by realignment because of football, but the smaller conferences will still be able to be competitive with the larger schools due to factors such as one and done players at institutions such as Kentucky and Duke, as well as increased parity due to the rise of AAV basketball during the summer for high school players. Basketball should be fine for a very long time.

College Hockey: A niche sport that is really big a a few universities (North Dakota, Minnesota, Boston College, Denver, etc.), but overall irrelevant for most of the year until it gets some media attention during the Frozen Four. It has the potential to expand to a few more major universities (ex. the Big Ten schools without programs, Washington, Oregon, maybe some ACC schools), but overall won't be affected by much over the next few years.

College Baseball: I don't know a lot about college baseball, but I assume it is slotted somewhere between basketball and hockey in popularity. Probably makes a good slice of revenue from the college world series. I don't know enough about it to speculate on it's future.

Other college sports: Soccer, lacrosse, rugby, swimming, diving, rowing, track and field etc. probably have some programs which are popular, but overall most likely bleed money and are greatly subsidized by the football and basketball programs at most schools. The problem is without these sports where would these athletes train? Also with Title IX I couldn't see any universities getting rid of most of these sports to save money.

Amateurism: To me the biggest factor for the future of college sports is if these sports are continued to be considered amateur competitions. If football and basketball players end up getting paid as compensation for their services on the court/ field it could have several impacts on the college sports landscape. First it would mean that athletes competing in other sports that don't make a profit for the university will want compensation as well. Second the smaller universities probably can't afford to pay 53 football players (possibly plus practice roster), so they may decide to drop college football altogether (basketball with less scholarships would probably be okay). Third the players on the football/ basketball teams can finally use their personal likeness for profit, so the university can sell jerseys and t-shirts with the players names on it, giving the players a cut of the revenue. Overall I think the larger schools such as Texas, USC, Florida, Stanford, Alabama, Ohio State, North Carolina, etc. would be able to afford paying for professional players, while the FCS schools, and other 5 conference schools would be in trouble when it comes to university athletics.
 

Jonas1235

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Teams make a ton of money from concessions and game experience. Why would there not be arenas? I see 30,000 seat arenas and every stadium 100,000. Parking areas will be obsolete, turned into football fields, basketball courts and hockey arenas for kid to practice their craft. Everyone will take transit because cars/gas will be so expensive.
 

patnyrnyg

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Sep 16, 2004
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I think calling Football the defining sport in the US is sort of misleading. It isn't like the UK where the premiere league has no real competition, the MLB is about 2/3rd the size of the NFL, and the NBA is almost 1/2. Add in AAA, AA, and A, Southern Winter Leagues etc. Baseball probably competes with Football.
The US certainly has the most diverse sports scene in the world.

Could not agree more. everyone of us in the US can probably name someone who only likes one of the 4 major sports. We can all name someone who follows basketball and football, but not baseball and hockey and every other combo.
 

hockeygoon15

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Nov 30, 2006
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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.â€

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.

First of all, I 100% agree with your conclusion regarding headers.

As for the air travel, I think the main flaw in your argument is that you're trying to determine what is physically/economically feasible in the future using present day technologies. Assuming the laws of physics aren't 'revised' in the next 100 years, there are still ways we could cross the oceans faster. Google tells me that the Concorde had a max cruising altitude of 60,000' (didn't realise it was that high -- not bad). What's to say that we won't be able to go higher than that in 50 years? At 100,000 feet, I'd imagine that you could create sonic booms all you want over populated areas without an issue. Even using present day tech, you'd have to imagine that the 400+ million dollar A380 would cost substantially less in 50 years.
 

Dirty Old Man

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Thought this was interesting:

Price of Football 2016

Malcolm Clarke, chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation, said: "On their current £8.3bn deal, the Premier League could afford to let every single fan in free for every game and still have as much money as they had under the previous deal.

"That gives you an idea of the scale of the amount of money they have got."
 

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