Sport will never be the same for baby boomers
1 Full stream ahead
A workmate at least two years my senior complained recently about the woes of flipping between live sport on a streaming service, compared to the channel surfing that came so easily on traditional TV.
And he had a point, along with one foot in the grave. It is slightly more complicated to juggle games on a streamer, and the few seconds of buffering to start a new feed does add up.
Unfortunately for my washed-up colleague, there’s no going back. While Sky and Spark do trade content in this country — shown by the former regaining Premier League rights — the future is clear.
Last week it was reported the Apple company were close to securing the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package, marking a monumental shift for the most popular sport in the United States.
Considering the fruit network this year became the first American company to reach a market value of US$3 trillion, staging an NFL coup for US$2.5 billion ($3.74b) a year is comparatively loose change.
The streaming wars that disrupted content globally were always going to come for sport and, unfortunately for certain generations less enamoured with watching live games online, fans better get used to it.
2 Cricketers in club vs country battle
Apologies for continuing to drag my ancient workmate, but streaming wasn’t the end of his gripes. And on this point I must partially agree: it can be galling to watch Kane Williamson at the crease in the IPL after being deprived of that pleasure all summer.
There’s a reasonable explanation why the Black Caps skipper is wearing the colours of Sunrisers Hyderabad after a nagging elbow injury had left him on the sidelines since December: the lighter batting load required for T20s meant he could still perform in that format while being unable to don the whites.
But it’s also true that Sunrisers paid $2.7m to retain the services of Williamson this season — and he was far from alone in skipping Black Caps matches to play in the IPL.
The dozen internationals missing from the Netherlands series weren’t missed on the field, except by fans starved of cricket in a Coviddisrupted summer.
But this again is the new normal. Club vs country battles have raged in football for years. With the financial disparity ever swelling between those two sides, it’s no surprise the battles have spread to other codes.
3 With great power . . .
That’s especially true given athletes are more powerful than ever, beneficiaries of a long-overdue rebalance in sport that’s affixed greater value to those who, you know, do the sport.
It may not be totally desirable for fans who preferred their sportspeople being paid little and saying less, but athletes are obviously entitled to a greater share of the enormous revenue their abilities generate.
Just like they’re entitled to communicate with fans directly through social media instead of more traditional channels, even if those channels ask really nicely.
And they can play for whomever they want, whenever they want. Sabbaticals in rugby will only increase as the wealth available offshore continues to dwarf what’s on offer at home, and New Zealand Rugby will grow warier of keeping their stars eligible for All Blacks selection.
A change in that particular policy still seems a long way away, but sportspeople will grow only more powerful as streamers flood the market with more cash.
4 Safety first
Spooked by potential classaction lawsuits filed by former players whose bodies are testament to the risk that contact sports can pose, sport is becoming readily safer.
This Super Rugby season has provided ample evidence of that, the shift across the Tasman doing nothing to halt the rash of red cards.
Game’s gone, some might think, and athletes today just aren’t as hardened from all the steak and cigarettes.
But anachronisms like that aren’t taken seriously in most corners of sport, not when we hear from players like former England hooker Steve Thompson.
Thompson, whose new memoir details his troubles from what he calls the “brain damage” he sustained from rugby, remembers nothing of playing in and winning the 2003 World Cup final.
His story, while exceptional, is no aberration, and new safety measures are quite clearly both necessary and permanent.
There will be more. Football without heading might seem preposterous but prominent former pros like England striker Gary Lineker are among those who have voiced support for such a radical shift.
5 Anti-competitive behaviour
There won’t be many of any age recalling wistfully better days in the Bundesliga. But anyone who enjoys sport competitive should be concerned by Bayern Munich winning their 10th straight title.
The German giants are hardly alone in exerting an unsporting level of dominance over domestic rivals.
Nick Harris of Sporting Intelligence calculated that, by the end of this 30th English Premier League season, 82 per cent of the 90 major domestic trophies available will have been won by six clubs: Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool and Leicester.
By contrast, in the 30 years prior to the Premier League, the most successful six clubs claimed 59 per cent of the big domestic prizes.
That trend, like every other in this piece, will not be reversing, not while oil-rich nation states continue to launder their reputations through football clubs.