Future Posts Moved to The World Future Society Website

From now on, I will be blogging on the World Future Society website, www.wfs.org. You will see a path to my blog which is called Kenneth W. Harris' blog in the lower right corner of the home page or you can go to it directly by using this link. http://www.wfs.org/blog/166.

There I will continue talking about trends in sports and fitness and, in addition, about my other newer specialty emerging technologies, particularly emerging transportation technologies.

Happy reading and futuring!

Ken Harris

Kids Play Their Sports for Fun, Not Winning, Not to Imitate the Pros

Adults who live their dreams of being pro sports stars through their children ought to read and think about this article, "A Survey of Youth Sports Finds Winning Isn't The Only Thing", which appeared in the January 30, 2010, New York Times. Peter Barston, a 15-year-old sophomore at Fairfield (CT) Prep high school, and his 12-year-old brother Stephen at the urging of their father surveyed 4th-8th graders in the Darien Y.M.C.A. basketball league to find out why they play sports. Their survey offered 11 possible reasons, but overwhelmingly the respondents chose to have fun. The boys plan to expand their survey to cover local softball, baseball, and possibly lacrosse players and may even start a website, which would oversee lots of local surveys taken by their peers. Their survey closely mirrors the results of a nationwide 1988 survey taken by the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University.

Adults, especially those who dream of their children getting college athletic scholarships or of their children achieving what they could not achieve on the athletic field, should think of this article when they are advising their children about sports participation.

I suppose in 21st century America it is too much to ask parents to let their children play some sports by themselves under their own rules as I used to do as a child back at mid-2oth century, but that would be nice. Adults today over organize youth sports to their children's detriment. This is not just my opinion; psychiatrists and psychologists like Dr. David Elkind, author of The Power of Play: How Spontaneous Imaginative Activities Lead to Healthier Happier Children think so too. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that parents think of this article.

Drew Brees Article In January 10, 2010, Washington Post

On January 10, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees took the side of American Needle in American Needle Inc. v. NFL in this article in the Washington Post's Outlook section "The NFL Shouldn't Call All the Plays". Briefly, American Needle is charging the NFL with an antitrust violation because it awarded an exclusive contract to Reebok to make and sell souvenir NFL caps, thus depriving American Needle of that line of business. The Supreme Court has heard oral arguments in the case. Lower courts ruled in favor of the NFL on the grounds that for the purposes of selling souvenir merchandise the 32-team NFL is one entity, not 32 separate ones. American Needle and the NFL both asked for Supreme Court review. The NFL wanted the review because it wants to be considered one entity, not 32, in all business dealings. The NBA and NHL have sided with the NFL and the major sports players' associations have sided with American Needle. MLB is not participating because it already has an anti-trust exemption.

Why are Drew Brees and the NFL players and players in the other sports leagues so concerned and why did the NFL ask for Supreme Court review when it had already scored a favorable narrow lower court ruling? Brees and the major sports players see this as strengthening the hand of the sports leagues and team owners. If the NFL succeeds, the rights the players have won through previous anti-trust lawsuits, strikes and hard bargaining to negotiate terms of their employment with individual teams, he says, will be seriously eroded. Leagues and team owners will be able to make take-it-or-leave-it offers of salaries and potentially cut players' salaries and benefits.

No matter what rationale the NFL and the other leagues may offer, I believe Mr. Brees sees the real reason behind the NFL's posture. I think the owners are concerned, and probably rightly so, that they must take action, possibly drastic action, that will enable them to curb players' salary demands because the current, long-term economic model of major sports is not sustainable. There are signs that engines that have been sustaining the multi-million dollar profits of the owners and salaries of the players--stadium naming rights, sponsorships, the sale of media rights and high game ticket and seat license prices--are eroding in this time of economic downturn, so I believe the NFL and its allies, the NBA and NHL, have seized on this relative minor legal case to get the necessary leverage to curb players' salaries.

I think the case is also a marker of a new trend for the major sports leagues to act in concert to safeguard and improve their economic interests and of the players' associations to act in concert to further their opposing interests. Late last year, there was another example of the leagues acting together. The NHL fought successfully in bankruptcy court to prevent the high bidder for the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes from moving the team to Ontario, and the other leagues supported the NHL. The NHL succeeded in keeping the Coyotes in Arizona by buying the team.

Might we see simultaneous or near simultaneous work stoppages in the 4 major U.S. sports in this new decade either in the form of strikes or lockouts? I think it's a possibility.

BTW, the MLS players and MLS are in contentious labor negotiations currently. In the U.S. we have been accustomed to speaking of the 4 major sports, but we really ought to speak of 6--the traditional 4, MLS and NASCAR.

2020 Vision for Professional Sports in Today's New York Times

Today's (January 3) New York Times carries this piece entitled 2020 Vision. Microsoft held a forum on what leading sports executives and thinkers about sports thought would be different about sports in 2020. The article didn't seem to reach any particular conclusion except that professional (and I suppose they would include Division 1 college sports as well) will have to come to grips with how to deal with digitization of content especially because the up-and-coming generation believes anything worth doing is digitized or digitizable.

I was surprised and pleased that two prominent futurists Nat Irvin and Glen Hiemstra were quoted in the article. Perhaps this is a sign that the sports industry like many others now recognizes that its future may very well not be much like its past.

Since professional and top college "amateur" sports compete for the public's money and leisure time. To me, the key questions the sports industry needs to answer are:

1. Are its current big money economics sustainable? In an age of relative scarcity, will the public keep paying very high ticket and seat license prices to attend games they can see better on TV? Will TV, radio and Internet providers keep paying the high fees professional teams and leagues demand and get for broadcast and Internet rights? Will corporations keep paying multi-million dollar sponsorship fees just to get their names on stadiums and player equipment? Will colleges and universities continue to pay multi-million dollar coaches salaries, build expensive stadiums and arenas, and construct lavish training facilities? The current recession has revealed weaknesses in sports economics, and I think pro sports will have to fundamentally rethink their business models or they will be in for some nasty surprises in this new decade and the next one. We'll see how much they are thinking about this in the coming labor negotiations in the 4 major U.S. professional sports. I think they'll have to cut into players' salaries. I also expect colleges and universities to question more the high prices they are paying to maintain athletic (especially football and basketball) programs.

2. Will professional sports continue to be able to compete for the public's leisure time? There are plenty of trends promoting what I call the "bottom up" sports culture. This is the one most people (i.e., those of us who are not elite athletes) participate in. In my opinion, the biggest trend in favor of participating in the bottom up sports culture is the medical community's strongly advocating more exercise for most people. Data I have seen shows the public may not always follow this advice. In fact, most Americans do not exercise enough for good health, but they believe they should even if they don't. In our busy 24/7 world, people who use their leisure time for the exercise they need may not have enough left to attend professional sports events in person or even watch them regularly on TV. Professional sports should see the challenge they face in competing against exercise and sports available to the average person at no or low cost for the average person's leisure time. I am not certain they see that yet.

The Business of College Sports, Especially Football

In my last post, I noted that economics had recently forced Northeastern and Hofstra universities to give up football. They decided that the money they would spend on football could be better spent on what universities are supposed to be about--education. Today in the Washington Post, the Co-Chairmen of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics question the sustainability of the current college sports business model. They assail the popular view that all college football needs is a playoff instead of the current BCS bowl system and all will be well, and they note the reality that at least 44% of major college football programs can't exist without subsidies from the schools' general funds--money that in these times is sorely needed to fulfill other needs.

So it seems that the colleges and universities are beginning to question whether they should really be in the sports business, and, if so, how much into it they should be. Right? Not so fast, this piece that appeared in Thursday's Wall Street Journal says, "In college football, the most indispensable players are not necessarily star quarterbacks. Sometimes they're the overeager alumni who write big checks and weigh in from the sidelines". The article goes on to list the incredible donations made by University of Texas alumni to support the school's football program. After reading that piece, can anyone seriously think that the University of Texas again playing in the national championship game again results from athletic skill of its players and coaches alone? The answer is "no", and I believe all schools which compete at the top levels of college football agree. As a result, once they decide to compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision, they get on an inescapable treadmill of needing bigger and ever more expensive stadiums and other athletic facilities and hiring more and more high-priced coaches and spending more and more on the other expenses of running athletic programs like travel and recruiting to be able to win games in order to earn the money to sustain and expand the programs, which usually turn out not to be self-sustaining.

Not only that but also this week there was a press report that the Big Ten conference was seeking to add a 12th member so that it could have a conference title game just as other conferences like the SEC do, and, of course, that conference title game would bring in gobs of TV money just like the title games of the rival power conferences.

Well, as an Ivy League graduate, who has long believed that the Ivy League gets college sports right, I was really surprised to see that the Ivy League is getting into the big money act too. Now, the Ivies can't hope to match the popular and big money appeal of football, or even men's basketball, as played in the power conferences, but they do sometimes stack up pretty well in head-to-head competition against more-sports-oriented schools in lesser sports. Recently Bloomberg reported that the Ivy League is considering holding conference tournaments in men's and women's lacrosse to see which of its teams would get the right to appear in the NCAA lacrosse tournaments and was seeking sponsors to fund the tournaments. I don't see any rational reason for this other than the money involved. What is wrong with having the team with the best record in conference play in the regular season be the conference representative in the NCAA tournament? I could ask the same question about the college conference basketball tournaments played in every conference (I think!) except the Ivy League.

I'm as happy as the alum of any school when the athletes of my alma mater Harvard win a match, a game or a championship, but I do, like Chancellor Kirwan and President Turner in today's Washington Post, think that college sports must turn away from its semi-professional business model and our colleges and universities must concentrate on educating people for the 21st century. America's colleges and universities aren't revered the world for the athletic teams they put on the field or court. Let's leave the business of sports to the pros.

Exerfuture Revives

Hello Once Again to All of You out There in Cyberspace Interested in Sports and Fitness Futures!

While I haven't been posting in the last few months, I have not neglected the sports and fitness world. I continue to scan for articles on the business of sports and have been supplying around 100 a month to Sports Business Research for their sports web portal. As I do this, I learn a great deal about the business of sports. I also keep finding studies and reports on things going on in the sports and fitness world. Amazon's computer knows I am interested in the serious side of sports, and I keep learning about new titles in the field and actually reading some while stockpiling others. Also, the Futurist Book Group, which I lead, at Politics and Prose, an independent Washington bookstore recently read The Price of Perfection by Maxwell Mehlman. The book deals with the inconsistent and sometimes hypocritical manner in which our society deals with biomedical enhancements to our bodies and draws heavily on examples from the sports world. The Futurist has asked me to write a joint review of Mehlman's book and Performance Enhancing Technologies in Sports by Thomas Murray, Karen Maschke and Angela Wasuna, and I have begun close reading of that one. When I get that review done and I know when it will be published, I'll let you know.

I am most excited about the article I published in the online journal Future Takes, "The Future of Sports: Top Down, Bottom Up or Both?" . The article notes that the world has two side-by-side sports cultures. The Top Down sports culture is the big money one most of us see occasionally at the ball park and frequently on TV or the Internet. It is for elite athletes to participate in and the rest of us to watch and fork over our money for tickets and cable TV packages. The Bottom Up sports culture is for the rest of us who want to compete on an amateur basis against others or our own previous personal best, exercise for good health or just have fun. The article sees the beginning of chinks in the hitherto impenetrable armor of the Top Down sports culture resulting from the recession and raises doubt as to its continued viability. It was written last summer but published only last month, so some parts of it are dated (e.g., Rio was selected to host the 2016 summer Olympics.), but I think the ideas are worth exploring further, and I hope to turn them into a book.

One indicator of the weakening of the Top Down sports culture is the recent decisions by Northeastern and Hofstra Universities to drop their football programs because of the cost involved. This followed a petition by the faculty senate at UC Berkeley for the university to stop subsidizing the athletic department. Are the harder economic times finally forcing our institutions of higher learning to focus on the classroom? I noted also that Notre Dame University had to fork over $16 million to buy out Charlie Weis' contract. What must their accountants and financial managers think of that? After all, Weis had a winning record overall, although a losing one this season.

Another interesting idea I have been playing around with is to what extent those of us in the Bottom Up sports culture will keep exercising if medical science finds a way for us to maintain our weight without exercising. The Washington Post published this little piece yesterday about a recent discovery of a genetic defect that causes morbid childhood obesity. I suspect other genetic defects linked to obesity will be found and/or the drug industry will come with a pill that would safely let us lose or maintain weight, and I think that would lessen people's motivation to exercise, which is weak for a lot of people as it is. If we continue to exercise, we will still get the psychological and aesthetic benefits.

That's all for now. I pledge to be a lot more regular in my postings. You will also be able to follow me on twitter where my user name is HopefulNatsFan.

Ken

Speed Limits on the Capital Crescent Trail

The Sunday June 1 Washington Post Metro section featured an article saying that the Maryland National Park and Planning Commission is now establishing a speed limit of 15 MPH on some sections of the Capital Crescent Trail. Sorry, I can't provide a link to the article; it did not seem to be available on the Post's website or on the web earlier today.

I know from the article and my own observation that many of my fellow cyclists do not and will not take kindly to this new regulation. However, I do think it's needed, and I hope people will obey it and police patrols will enforce it. In the late afternoon and on weekends all day, the trail is crowded not only with cyclists but also with runners, walkers, and people pushing strollers. I have seen more close calls than I can possibly count on the trail. The near accidents all result from bicyclists going too fast for conditions--usually the crowding is the hazardous condition, not the weather. In particular, I have had some scary experiences when passing a slower cyclist or a couple walking together with other cyclists passing me at the same time--this on a 10 foot wide paved trail.

We can all enjoy the trail if we just take simple precautions, so I ask my fellow cyclists to slow down and enjoy the ride and not pass until the left hand lane is clear; that's no different from what you do as a matter of course when driving on a two lane road. However, you walkers and runners pay close attention and stay well to the right of the centerline.

More generally, as I state in my paper, "Recreational Trails in Our Sports and Fitness Present and Future", I believe that the trail user population, especially in urban areas, will increase faster than trail capacity, so there will have to be more regulation and more policing of trails. If not, there will be a growing number of accidents, many serious, that will deter people from using trails and the nation's overall fitness and health will suffer.


PS in regard to Saturday's post, on the Save the Trail event, Pam Browning wanted me to note that people from many communities helped in organizing the event. She said about 400 people attended.