In my first two blog posts we looked at the past and present ecology of sports media, so it is only right to look into the future to predict what might be happening in the years to come.
There are many possibilities of where the sports media could take us, as media is constantly evolving. We can see that media has changed to a more digital format in the present time, as technologies keep advancing it could be said that they will just carry on advancing leading to an even more digital world.
The future of sport and sport consumption will be unknown, but from the past trends that we have looked at we can make assumptions of things that might happen. Miah (2017) looked at five insights for the future, they include: what counts as sport and physical activity, the rise of eSport, the expansion of AR/VR, how fans engage with their sporting interest through AR/VR and finally gamification.
There have been worldwide eSport mass events, however it is not yet said that eSport is an actual sport (Rosell Llorens, 2017). This takes us back to the point of what actually counts as sport. After the COVID -19 pandemic hit and live sport was not happening, athletes took part in eSports which engendered an acceptance with people (Ke and Wagner, 2020). This will encourage many more people partaking in eSports, as they will see famous athletes taking part which will entice them to get on the trend.
As for the new technology of the internet it has seen the growth of Fantasy sport (Ruihley and Hardin, 2014). Fantasy Sport is prevalent in most sports (Karg and McDonald, 2011), it is an interactive online activity based on actual statistics (Dwyer and Drayer, 2010). Dwyer and Drayer (2010) believe this could add another layer to the current sporting media. What are your thoughts?
Sports organisations have been trialling the use of virtual reality (VR) to enhance the experience of the spectators. VR emulates the experiences of the spectators who physically attend the event by providing 360 environments, images, sounds and other stimulants. It has also been utilised to carry out virtual walk rounds of the stadium (NASDAQ, 2021). Could VR be the future of sports media? Time will only tell.
Do you like how sport is changing? What are your predictions for the future? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below and don’t forget as always like and follow to keep up to date with future blogs!
Media and Digital Transformation in Sport 