Play ball! How sports will change in the 21st century: a sports-minded futurist reveals how...

Welcome to the twenty-first century's wide world of sports--a rapid-paced world where technology is as much a part of the game as muscle, where sports celebrity rivals religious worship, and where winning at all costs is the name of the game. To understand how sports will evolve during the coming

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The Council of Europe defined sport as "all forms of physical activity, which, through casual or organized participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships, or obtaining results in competition at all levels." This is a good test to put to any new future of sport.

The ancient Olympic Games, which commenced in Olympia, Greece, in 776 B.C., are often hailed as the true historical roots of competitive sports, especially of amateurism. Among the aspects central to the Games' success (for competitors as well as onlookers) were the thrill of victory, the opportunity to commune with the gods, the chance to view and participate in the spectacle of the Games themselves, the opportunities for meeting and trading with people, and the feeling of participating in the cultural, educational, and aesthetic ideals of one's own culture.

The Games at Olympia (only one of four in ancient Greece) were part of the whole development system of a democratic nation seeking to balance its education system around knowledge, culture, religion, and physical agility. Competitors in these events were well known, often political figures or military leaders who competed as much for raising awareness of their fitness for other more important tasks as for the glory it personally brought them.

Religious influences have always been associated with much of early sports' development. Each of the Panhellenic games was dedicated to a god or goddess with its accompanying, usually sexually driven rituals. In the early nineteenth century, it was often established churches that instigated organized events in a community or in its schools, especially as shortening working hours gave people more time to indulge in leisure activities other than churchgoing.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In addition to religion, the type of work performed at various points in history has also influenced sports. Until modern times, armies and navies needed men with high degrees of fitness and strength, and military training manuals record the playing of team games as well as regimented physical exercise as core principles for building up muscle and morale--and for reinforcing hierarchies and establishing order.

Sports have also been used to separate social classes. Some sports, such as tennis and horse racing, began centuries ago as the exclusive pursuits of nobles and kings. Polo continues to be associated mainly with wealth and royalty, and only those with considerable wealth can indulge in such popular new sports as motor racing, despite the sport's incredible popularity.

Another strong influence on the shape of modern sports is the ongoing conflict between amateurs and professionals. Amateur team sports started to surface in an organized way in the nineteenth century, often following their introduction at English public schools and universities or their counterparts in British colonies, including India, South Africa, and Australia.

Professionalism remains a dirty word in some modern sports. In ancient times, villages might pay for their champion to attend a Games for the glory it might bring them. In Victorian English society, however, it was considered unsporting to pay a gentleman to participate in a sport--though it was deemed acceptable to provide financial incentive for someone from a lower social class to play for one's club. Leadership in bridging the professional-amateur barrier has often come from players outside a sport's governing authority. Tennis, for example, was long the realm of amateurs only, until Australian tennis players such as Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall broke down the barriers that had kept professionals out of such high-profile events as the U.S. Open and Wimbledon by joining the World Championship Tennis circuit and similar tours.

This led the way for professionals to dominate virtually all areas of other, once-elite sports, including rugby. "As rugby union's development in the late twentieth century brought it to resemble other professional team sports, the Rugby Football Union remained steadfast in retaining the game's officially amateur status," writes Peter Williams in the International Journal of History of Sport. "There was a critical period in which a combination of events set in motion forces for change the authorities would be unable to contain. This turning point in the sport's recent history caused the RFU to defend its increasingly isolated position against three separate, though related, pressure groups: the senior English clubs, the national team, and the progressive elements on the International Rugby Board."

Major high-profile events have had the most significant impact on the twentieth-century sporting landscape. Many major spectator sports have moved to a World Cup system or other championship-type series for their events, usually on a four-yearly cycle. These are mass-marketed spectaculars where the sport is sometimes incidental to everything else going on around it. Devoted fans spend vast amounts of money to go on overseas tours built around their team's games, often promoted by government tourism bureaus.

Government and politics have had an impact in other ways as well. An inextricable link between politics (and war) and sports seems firmly established, perhaps best summed up by George Orwell when he said that sport is "war minus the shooting." Events demonstrating this link include the Moscow Olympics boycott of 1980; the 1981 South African Springbok rugby tour, which prompted antiapartheid protests in New Zealand; and the World Cup soccer war between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, which claimed thousands of lives. A closer examination of many such events throughout history shows that sports was sometimes deliberately used as a tool of imperialism by many nations, pitting factions and, in some cases, nations against one another. Today, one of the best ways to recognize the political importance of sports at a transnational level is to look at visits by the head of the International Olympic Committee, which often take on the full pomp and circumstance of a state visit.

KEY TRENDS IN SPORTS AND CULTURE

Here are the key trends that I believe will have the most impact and that may lead to different possible futures for sports.

Sports have become an entertainment business. Postmodernism has transformed sports. Sports scholars Bob Stewart and Aaron Smith note, "By the 1990s a number of professional sport leagues had emerged as amateurism lost its snobbish appeal and sport went about building its commercial value." As a result, stadiums became billboards, athletes became celebrities, competitions became sense-bombarding experiences, and fans shifted loyalties from one team to the next, unbound by the parochial tribalism of the ancients. "The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games convincingly demonstrated that Australian sport had become a chaotic mix of ancient ritual, traditional athletic contests, slickly marketed and customized leisure experiences, and ultra-professional sports that combine complex strategy with Hollywood-style showmanship," Stewart and Smith conclude.

Anyone looking for further evidence that sports are big business only needs to pick up a local television guide and look at the sheer variety of choices available to the viewer: poker, lawn-mower racing, bungee-jumping, elephant polo, juggling, and more. Can this trend go on forever? Increasingly, the answer is, "no." Both ESPN and NBC stated more than 10 years ago that their networks no longer had any "must-see" events, including the Olympics, which only survives financially on such network revenue and on the sponsorship of corporations and conglomerates. Many sports organizations, participants, and viewers are also starting to resent the intrusion of the television scheduler and advertisers into the flow of the game.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Team sports versus the individual. An emerging trend that seems set to continue is the demise of team sports and the ascendance of individual sports. This trend seems closely associated with changes to work-life balance and the culture of individualism apparent in most of Generation X. The modern worker is losing the battle to balance participation in organized sports with the demands of the workplace and the home. With the demise of the standard working day and the trend toward holding down multiple jobs, fewer and fewer chances exist for today's busy worker to commit to a regular training schedule for a team sport. Thus, the serious fitness addict or sporting person is turning more to individual pursuits--such as triathlons, marathons, the personal fitness regimen at the gym, and Ironman competitions--to achieve prowess.

Club ownership. The majority of team sports, including baseball, basketball, soccer, and rugby, are in professional leagues and managed as business franchises. Ownership comes in many shapes and forms; baseball management, for example, consists of clubs owned by a business that employs players on salaries. Clubs regularly change hands for colossal sums; sometimes the entire team will change cities when new owners are based elsewhere and want their team closer to control management better.

Business owners, however much they may like a sport or a club, want one thing above all else: a better-than-normal rate of return on their investment. Inevitably, this trend will create demands on coaches and players that create a win-at-any-cost mentality, leading to tragedies such as the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal, the World Series "game-throwing" incident. The true essence of sport will then be lost.

The impact of terrorism. Terrorism is normally perceived as more of a wild card than a trend, as it usually seeks publicity about a cause by capturing public interest through a dramatic event, such as the 1972 Munich Olympics siege. However, modern terrorism is an international, omnipresent movement seemingly inspired by hatred for all things Western and American. This trend could eventually affect sports at all levels.

The modern terrorist is prepared to take time to accomplish his ends, often planning for events many years in advance. Today, there may already be individuals training not only to excel as athletes, but also to be able to disrupt major events in the future. Imagine a winning World Cup team clutching the Jules Rimet trophy, then blowing themselves up with it on the podium. Such an event may seem far-fetched, but it is plausible given the international attention paid to sports and the desperation of some individuals and groups.

Designer drugs. The trend for sports people to enhance their performance through substances is not a modern one. Records of the ancient Games show athletes selectively feeding on herbs for many weeks before such major events. It was not until 1969 that robust analytical techniques were used for drug detection in sports, and since then, both coaches and pharmaceutical interests have been trying to find drugs that avoid detection. When testers catch up, athletes inevitably end up losing--their records, their medals, their sponsorships, and their reputations.

In 2003, a new human gene--the so-called "speed gene"--was discovered in East Africa. Geneticists hailed the day when a purpose-built athlete could be cloned, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science announced a conference to explore the "potential uses of genetic enhancement in competitive sports from the perspective of athletic organizations, athletes, scientists, and ethicists."

High-technology equipment. We may see completely new forms of artificial-intelligence-based machinery taking over areas of human activity within the next 20 years. Sports are no exception to this trend. You can now go to the local sports store and plug into a machine that will fit each foot with a shoe designed for a particular sport. At the golf range, a computerized swing analyzer will tell you what shaft length you need and what club head and what ball will give the greatest distance. Specially designed track-and-field equipment that aligns the characteristics of the athlete and the stadium can give an individual athlete more than a meter's advantage over competitors. In motor sports and America's Cup yacht racing, technologists sit amid a vast array of computers taking race data, analyzing it, and sending it back to the driver or helmsman to make minute corrections that might win them the race. It may not be long before a humanoid robot sits in the driving seat of a Formula One car and the champion driver sits under the grandstand or in an apartment at a beach in another country driving the car remotely. The only time the fans or officials will suspect the difference is when the champagne flows and the robot shorts out!

The sports industry. Sports are no longer just pastimes. They are big business. Over a 20-year period, there has been a 10,000% increase in sports sponsorship, affecting every possible sport imaginable--even sheep shearing. Most professional sports cannot afford to operate without guaranteed television rights payments and commercial sponsorship. Even at the amateur level, club finances rely on the local sportswear store to provide the uniform and equipment, while the local butcher or hardware store may have its name adorning shirts or goalposts, a privilege someone is collecting money for.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Will this trend continue? As ethical investors compare the economic, environmental, and social results of a business, many are finding it difficult to account for the benefits that sport sponsorship actually brings in the marketplace. This can be especially problematic when the supported sport or a particular team performs badly or has something of a poor reputation. In Australia, for example, almost an entire rugby league team has been recently accused of pack rape. If they are convicted, expect to see their sponsors distance themselves quickly from the team.

Without sponsors, there will be no teams or individual superstar athletes. Without teams, there will be no leagues. Without leagues, there will be no major competitions. Without major competitions, there will be no sports television, no merchandising, no corporate boxes. And thus it goes on.

FUTURE SCENARIOS FOR SPORTS

To understand where sport is heading, we need to examine five key drivers of change:

1. The clear distinction between work and leisure is growing blurrier and changing the types of sports we play.

2. The drive for instant entertainment will place high demands on sports people and the industry.

3. The drive by media companies and other businesses to own our allegiance to their products and services is dictating increasing control of sporting performance and behavior.

4. As sports bodies such as the International Olympics Committee, the International Cricket Council, and the International Rugby Board become neopolitical entities, their decisions will control key aspects of the destiny and sovereignty of sporting nations.

5. The loss of core values in society due to the waning influence of the church creates a spiritual vacuum into which sports may move.

Based on these drivers of change, we can discern four possible long-term scenarios.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Religiosport could develop as major sports replace conventional religion. Religiosport will have its shrines (stadiums), costumes (uniforms), services (games and events), rituals (chants and songs), high priests (star athletes), and piety (fan loyalty). Religiosport will actively condone violence against rival sects (teams).

Machosport is a future where individual sports people become popular idols, feted wherever they go, promoted by the media, and put on display as being the ideal of modern man or woman. In this scenario, knowing about the sport is incidental to knowing about the person. It is increasingly associated with the worst forms of idolatry and leads to individuals losing their human rights and respect. Supporters will form fan clubs for individuals instead of participating in the sport, and as the heroes grow older, they will pass, with their "sport," out of existence.

Technosport develops when winning is everything and ethics counts for nothing. At this stage, the sport exists and is managed entirely by large businesses that appoint the sports-administration body and control all aspects of the sport's development, rules, and competitions. Individual players, coaches, and managers are only pawns to winning at all costs. In this scenario, only two international sports eventually remain--soccer and basketball--with most nations having only one team.

Valuesport will see an end to the big business of organized team sports and events. This future will be driven largely in response to some wild-card event, such as a terrorist attack at an Olympiad. Another threat to the Games' viability would be a last-minute pullout by the broadcast media covering them, perhaps in a battle over naming rights.

Another driver in this scenario is the obesity crisis. Health specialists, trying to cope with the vastly increased death rates stemming from society-wide lack of fitness, will lobby governments for a return to a different style of sports participation at all levels of society. They will no longer permit advertising to be linked to sports, and all teams participating in healthy competition will be backed by their community and financially supported by additional local taxes on unhealthy products such as alcohol, certain drugs, and tobacco.

GLOBAL COMMUNITY GAMES

Valuesport is, in this author's opinion, the preferred scenario. But how can we turn everything around now and prevent the onset of one of the other possible scenarios? The key will be to strengthen underlying values and continue to reinforce them for young people and new participants. These moral and ethical principles have to be continually reinforced through many avenues, including a more-sensitive media, to ensure that sports' positive contributions to society are not undermined.

Fortunately this work has already begun, quietly and without fanfare. For the past five years, an international group of sports people and community workers have been collaborating and bringing about such a change. These dedicated volunteers are using a simple experiential learning model used with sports and games and values derived from Bible stories to get people of all ages involved in improving their physical, moral, and spiritual health. Many sporting champions have also lent their support to the program by appearing at some of the opening and closing ceremonies of KidsGames, TeenGames, EdgeGames, and FamilyGames to encourage people of all ages to reach their goals. Some of these events have been the largest sporting events ever held in their cities or countries.

The future of large sports events may no longer be with the Olympians, but rather with those participating in something much grander: a values-based movement committed to ensuring that sports have a positive role in society. The result will be what the International Sports Coalition has called Global Community Games.

RELATED ARTICLE: A FUTURE SPORTS SCENARIO

With his "Z-box" thought-controller plugged into the entire Taupo Tyrants team, their coach Brad, career neuroscientist, carefully built up his manipulation of the final round of the 2023 Championships. It was vital that the team win. A ladies' fashion house had bought them for $10 billion at the beginning of the season as part of their strategic global investment plan. A Tyrants loss would do irreparable damage to their portfolio--a circumstance Brad would not allow to happen. For him--and the investors--it was inconceivable that the Tyrants would not win. Down by five points and with only five minutes to go, the players needed a reminder that, if they did not want to appear in pink tights next season, now was the time to execute the winning play Brad had minutely planned.

He reached for the switch he used to control all 15 of the Tyrants--the switch to activate the computer that sent radio signals to the nanobots in each player's brain. Researchers at MIT had perfected the controller only months before, but Brad was the first coach to try it out for real. Nanobots have been commonplace in the medical world for the better part of a decade; scientists often used them to stimulate those areas of the brain that were seriously retarded or underused. Brad used them for the same purpose, but his goals were less medically related. There was no discernible reaction on the field at first, but then Brad saw that his outside players were running with renewed passion and immense energy, using new, highly deceptive moves designed to throw the opposition's game plan. The nanobots were instructing the brain cells to send messages to control certain muscles and release adrenaline into the blood stream. It was working--the Tyrants would be winners after all.

--Robin Gunston

About the Author

Robin Gunston is chairperson of Futures Thinking Aotearoa, Box 12 008, Wellington, New Zealand. His e-mail is robing@futurestrust.org.nz. This article draws from his essay "The Future of Sport" in the World Future Society's 2004 conference volume, Thinking Creatively in Turbulent Times; order at www.wfs.org/volad04.htm or call 1-800-989-8274 ($29.95; $24.95 for Society members).

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

FEEDBACK: Send your comments about this article to letters@wfs.org.