What will the sports world look like in 2025?

ctv.ca, Mar 15, 2009 (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090313/future_of_sports_090315/20090315?hub=World)





An NFL running back with 3.8 speed in the 40-yard dash collides with a safety that bench-presses 400 pounds. Two centres tip off an NBA game in Spain, while a backcourt press causes a turnover and an easy two points in China, and none of the players had to cross any oceans to get to the arena. And all of it is viewed in real time by subscription-paying fans plugging a Web connection into a big-screen TV.

Welcome to the sports world of 2025, where stronger, faster athletes compete at a breakneck pace on the field while their owners and sponsors do the same off of it. Sports training and medicine are making enormous leaps, as is media convergence.

The sports fan of 2025 will be able to view any number of games on a dizzying array of platforms. "Leagues are building out their own networks," says David Card, a vice president and media analyst with Forrester Research who figures that initiatives like NBA TV and the MLB Network, along with team-controlled operations like the New York Yankees' YES Network, will control increasing amounts of coverage in the future. That will include the ability to view live games over the Internet, an initiative the NBA is already planning for next season.

As leagues and teams take total control, traditional outlets like CBS and Disney's ABC and ESPN may be left scrambling to find a niche beyond live programming. This could mean settling for the secondary role of supplying things like statistics, analysis and fantasy-league access.

But the casual viewer shouldn't panic -- yet. "Advertisers will still pay a lot of bills. ... It's a disinterested third party that best delivers to those who really care about the content," says Card. So even as media coverage of sports becomes increasingly fragmented, networks and pay-per-view services won't disappear altogether. Major, advertising-heavy events like the Super Bowl and World Series will continue to have their homes on the broadcast airwaves.

And what of the recent trend for building billion-dollar sports palaces? As the new Yankee stadium, the as-yet unnamed Dallas Cowboys' new home and the Mets' Citigroup- (and taxpayer-) funded Citi Field are receiving their finishing touches, the tanking economy has many fans rethinking the value of super seats and super stadiums.

Sure, the economic slump will only last so long, but some experts think the shock and suddenness of the global financial crisis may have shifted consumer attitudes permanently. For all but the wealthiest, the luxury sports experience could be out for a long time. That means a lot of $1,000 tickets and personal seat licenses could go unsold and unpopulated for a very long time.

To make up for the lost revenue, teams will turn to in-game sponsorship dollars, thinks Ketchum Sports vice president Shawn McBride. So prepare for an increase in technologically injected product placements in sports telecasts and for uniform patches to turn players into walking billboards for the likes of Gatorade and Toyota.

"The question will be how fans respond to that," says McBride. His guess: Just fine, once the novelty wears off. People have a way of getting used to things; in due time, their attention will revert back to following the action on the field

Other changes he foresees: Municipal politicians driving tougher bargains to help fund stadiums. And, by 2025, a true global presence for some major U.S. sports leagues. The popularity of hockey and basketball in many overseas locations have the NHL and NBA best positioned to develop true European or Asian branches over the next decade or so.

"The NBA is already a global brand," McBride says. "It's just a matter of the competition catching up with the interest."

But none of this can happen without the true stars of the game: the athletes. And fans can expect future stars to be bigger, faster and more durable. According to sports fitness experts, advances in training will allow athletes to safely strengthen traditional trouble spots, reducing rehab time for common maladies like high ankle sprains and torn ACLs to half what they were in the mid 1990s.

Meantime, the first NFL speedster to run a sub-four-second 40 yard dash isn't far off, nor is the first running back or safety to bench press 400 pounds -- two decades after a 300 pound lift was considered an impressive feat. Such will be the fans' reward for forking over so much money to see the games.

And wealthy players won't need to worry about off-season jobs. "Now, (the athletes') job is to get better," says Patrick Ward, a strength and conditioning coach who runs Optimum Sports Performance in Chandler, Ariz. "It's not unusual for 20 different guys on a team to have their own trainer. They're really focused on taking care of their bodies."

In the age of high-definition television and high-priced seats, they should be.