23Sports· Journalists Team

Enter the Arena

VisionProbability 70/100

// A story from 2051

After virtually reaching the stands, Tom silently orders his implant to show him the panoramic view of the pitch via one of the hundreds of nano-drone cameras recording the event. From this vantage point, Tom can check all the information scrolling, such as summaries of the previous games, the weather, the physical condition of the players and the predictions, Of course, there’s also a whole lot of targeted advertising – betting platforms, food, tickets for upcoming games, you name it. Tom isn’t letting himself become distracted by these. He nervously scans the AI predictions regarding the outcome of the match, then slides to the settings menu to select the voice of the virtual commentator who will cover the game.

One last look around the stadium, one last look at the stats, and he's ready for kick-off. The tension is palpable, especially as Tom is not just another spectator today. For a small fee, he has earned the right to participate in the game by remotely controlling one of the androids provided by FIFA. Tom puts down his beer and wipes his forehead. Kick-off is just five minutes away now.

As the androids enter the pitch, the crowd starts cheering for their favourite athletes. Today, the South Korean FC Jeonbuk Androids are playing against their Manchester United counterparts. Of course, Tom will do everything to ensure Manchester comes out on top and will play his role of remote defender very seriously. The two teams take the pitch; the serious business is about to begin. When the whistle blows, Tom automatically changes his point-of-view to that of his android’s! The game is underway!

All too quickly, the half-time whistle is blown. Tom is having such a blast that he feels like the game started just a few minutes ago, even though the South Korean team is one goal ahead. The cheering crowd, the sensations on the pitch, the nano-drones transmitting the game all over the world – everything’s like a dream. His android goes down to the stadium’s changing rooms, where its mechanics will be checked by an AI to make sure it works until the end of the game. All the data from the first half is collected by an AI trainer. Valuable insights will then be given to the remote players, including, of course, all the weaknesses of the opposing team.

The game is over. Tom is a bit disappointed. Although his team lost, they definitely held their own against the defending champions. He de-activates his neural implant and lies on his couch, exhausted but happy he could experience 90 minutes in the life of a high-level athlete. He will extend his sporting experience by attending the closing show happening on the metaverse to thank all the tournament’s participants: a huge live tournament of Cyberwatch.

// The science behind it

How many androbots does it take to score a goal?

Until the beginning of the 21st century, the world of professional sports, known as high-level sports, had been reticent about the active incursion of technology into its various competitions. Already, with an increase in the collection of metrics to analyse athletes' performances a posteriori and improve their equipment, slow-motion video to study possible rule violations, or simply augmented reality to display advertisements or statistics, it was unconceivable at the time that technology could play a much more substantial role in the physical performance itself.

Decade after decade, technology slowly advanced, particularly in the realm of spectator experience. The constant development of broadcasting techniques now allows spectators to personalise their consumption of more than a thousand sporting events – up to the last detail. From choosing your camera angles to follow one player, through to selecting the voice of the virtual commentator – the possibilities are endless. What better experience than watching a World Cup final hosted by a synthetic Pele, with whom you can also interact, taking advantage of the latest advances in voice synthesis and artificial intelligence?

The invention and improvement of neural implants, and the possibility of faithfully interpreting the flow of information that animates our brain, have allowed spectators to add to their arsenal of available camera angles, a direct view from the athlete's eyes. Already since 2040, we no longer just watch a sporting event, we experience it from the inside. These improvements also allow for the increasingly intensive collection of physical data, which can be interpreted by algorithms that not only provide detailed analyses in real time but will also make it possible to refine the accuracy of predictions.

These increasingly accurate predictions have led to a real crisis in the world of sports and a profound reflection on its intrinsically unpredictable nature. Is a football or tennis match still as exciting as ever when the outcome can be predicted with near certainty, even before the players have set foot on the pitch? Betting platforms have feared the worst: what interest would there be in betting if you already knew the result from the start? That was until the 2043 World Cup where South Korea defeated the German team despite the predictions. The reason? Some of the forwards of the South Korean team were wearing cybernetics prosthetics to limit their muscular fatigue. Since then, the world of sports started to reinvent itself by gradually allowing the use of cybernetic devices, such as physical augmentations, genetic engineering or the injection of skills via implants. It is no longer a question of developing more efficient equipment, but of improving the athlete directly. This new situation has quickly had a twofold impact: on the one hand, it has led to a re-evaluation of the existing rules and adapted them to the new paradigm, thereby maintaining a sufficient degree of uncertainty to generate excitement and ensure the safety of these new augmented athletes. On the other hand, it has given birth to new sports categories – such as cyborg football – and even new sports in general, more in line with the unprecedented capacities of these improved athletes.

A whole new stage has been reached when an ambitious entrepreneur offered the public an even more intense immersion through close interaction with these athletes via their implants. And while the possibility of physical control (and therefore human drones) will soon be officially banned worldwide, this revolutionary promiscuity allows a privileged (and wealthy) audience to influence the course of a match to some extent, by giving strategic advice and instructions directly into an athlete's cortex.

The creation a few years later of the first androids – physical humanoid avatars inseparable from their models – has recently made it possible to get over this ethical limit and offer a formerly passive public the chance to control these prefabricated athletes in their entirety. This major innovation makes it possible, for example, for a quadriplegic to participate in a rugby game by proxy, with an experience similar in every respect to that of playing the sport at a high level.

As android sports have become increasingly popular, specific championships have been created such as the Andro-VI Nations for rugby or the Android Ultra-Soccer World cup, just to name a few of them. In 2051, almost every augmented human sport has its android version. Aquatic sports are a bit behind in this respect as these bots must be improved for better underwater control. 2044 was the first year where the Olympic Games – in Addis Ababa – had four editions: historical edition, meaning the athletes weren’t artificially augmented, Paralympic edition, augmented edition and android edition. But over the years, more and more Olympic and Paralympic athletes were using artificial augmentations. From a sniper aim eye – mostly used in archery, shooting and biathlon – to genetical mutation tripling the anabolism speed to recover faster in most sports, less and less athletes were participating in the ‘historical’ Olympics and Paralympic editions. Thanks to genetic and technological augmentation, Paralympic athletes have quickly been able to compete in the same categories as other augmented athletes. So much so that next year, 2052’s Ulaanbaatar will be the first edition with only an augmented and android edition. New, strict regulations are applying to these augmented athletes to regulate these augmentations, specific to each discipline.

The arrival of the "androbots" has unfortunately also paved the way to increasingly extreme sports, devoid of any moral or humanistic considerations. The famous "duels to the death" between machines "telepathically" piloted by humans – at first clandestine and illegal – has grown so much in popularity that it ended up becoming part of the sporting landscape (even if they still cause a lot of controversy today).

Yet, the androbots have given an even greater boost to e-sports, with a bigger following than augmented and android sports combined. League of Legends and Overwatch online competitions remain very popular for e-sport hardcore fans, but the League of Droids and Cyberwatch tournaments are on a whole new level. The last League of Droids live tournament that happened in February 2051 attracted more than three million simultaneous spectators. And what a show it was! The best of the best players took control of the best champions in a crazy, pyrotechnical show that left everyone speechless. Not to be outdone, at the Cyberwatch tournament closing the Android Ultra-Soccer World Cup, they’re expecting 2,5 million spectators in the metaverse, with priority given to the participants of the Cup and 10 million spectators on Twitch – which thanks to 3D retransmission will give a good idea of how incredible the real show will be.

All these changes have created a complete convergence between sports and e-sports. They have now become inseparable. Especially when you compare android sports with live – real life – e-sport tournaments. The only difference lies in the fact that android sports are limited to traditional sports disciplines that would be part of the Olympic Games. Whether it's virtual skirmishes in a synthetic universe or the piloting of android drones through neural connections, the distinction between these different practices is becoming blurrier and blurrier.

High-level sports, the kind that galvanise crowds, have undergone drastic changes compared to what they used to be in 2021. However, their 'classic' counterparts, the ones involving non-augmented humans still remain, even if some may consider them obsolete. More popular at a local scale, ‘classic’ sports continue to appeal to those still looking for the ultimate in self-transcendence, without artifice.

For others, this profound transformation of sport through technology has not only made it more spectacular, and contributed to its revival, but has also made it more accessible. Today, regardless of physical predisposition, it is no longer forbidden to dream of a gold medal at the Olympic Games.

Moving the goalposts on the virtual playing field

The sports world, hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, is going through an unprecedented crisis, the repercussions of which will force it to reinvent itself to stem the loss of revenue. Until now, professional sports have depended on financial income generated mainly by advertising and broadcasting, but now virtualisation could be the key to ensuring its survival. It is no coincidence that in 2020, the 24 Hours of Le Mans was first held online, via a driving simulator (RFactor 2). Similarly, 2020 has seen the advance of the first virtual cycling world’s champions. These aren’t just anomalies, but a harbinger of what is to come.

In addition to these new ways of experiencing sporting events, the emergence of new disciplines (and particularly e-sports) will gradually transform professional sports and force it to finally take advantage of technological advances, on the broadcasting side and on the field. Deloitte’s report on the future of sports broadcasting says it clearly. Sports fans are looking forward to more technologically advanced experiences that allow them to watch their favourite game on-demand on their preferred channel with high quality images. They also want ultimate personalisation in their sports event consumption, which makes the idea of selecting your camera angle and your virtual commentator’s voice a not so far-fetched perspective.

Nicholas Bostrom, professor at Oxford and a pioneer of simulation theory goes even further and says that game broadcasting could soon converge with VR simulations. To him, VR simulation could even open the way to completely artificial competitions with artificial athletes.

As for Androbots being the new athletes, Battlebot has been organising destructive robot battles since 1987. The robots are still quite basic, but a lot of research is being made to improve them in various disciplines. Japanese engineers have already developed a basketball robot specialised in precision, three-point shots. Robots are also central when it comes to drone races, and even have their own league. The Drone Racing League (DRL) has been organising huge events all over the world since 2015. One of the latest shows gathered more than 190,000 viewers.

With regard to augmented athletes, Thomas Frey, member of the Association of Professional Futurists, predicts that we might soon be able to create super-athletes by editing their genes before they are even born, thanks to CRISPR technology. Enhancing athletes’ capabilities with implants or tech elements will be the next step.

Data will also play a huge part. It’s highly probable that many metrics, including personal metrics from athletes, will be gathered and used internally for improvement purposes, but also externally for prediction purposes. The Wall Street Journal forecasts that fans would then use these data for betting purposes, which raises ethical questions. But considering that in 2020 and 2021, we were expecting public communication on athletes’ Covid-19 test results, the same principle applies.

The crisis of 2020 sounded the alarm bell, initiating a profound rethink of professional sports for decades to come. And as this is certainly not the last time that the planet will confine itself to stop the proliferation of a virus, it is certain that this mutation of the sports world will accelerate. In the long run, freed from physical, technological and even ethical constraints, the only limit to sports will be the imagination.

The sports environment will undoubtedly change hugely in the coming decades. Some e-sport games could even become official Olympic disciplines before 2030, showing a convergence between “traditional sports” and their online version. An experience like Tom’s might actually be plausible, in a virtual stadium with Androbots being the stars of the game.

Data will help athletes to improve and perform better and better. However, as Nicholas Borstrom said, it’s unlikely that this data will be of any help to spectators who would like to bet. And if you could, it would indeed reduce interest in the game.

In the future, traditional sports will probably still have their place in the heart of stadium lovers – to whom it would be inconceivable to have the same experience online. But it’s also likely that augmentation is going to make sport even more entertaining for spectators that want more spectacle. Virtualisation will make them more and more accessible – both in terms of viewing and participating – pushing back the limits of what’s possible. Both will probably cohabit the future. The question is: in what format and with which types of athletes? Bring on 2051!

// Sources & further reading