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ESPN staff
Analytics, artificial intelligence, robots: What will the future of sports look like? Our experts predict the new strategies, rules and technology that could change our favorite games forever.
NBA in the year …
2025
The NBA introduces a “play-in” tournament for the final two playoff slots in each conference. The six games — nicknamed “April Agita” — generate a robust new revenue stream for the league.
2030
After years of negotiations-with everyone from the NBPA to the owners-the NBA reduces the regular season to 64 games. Though the league expects to absorb revenue losses, the inaugural season produces more exciting games and higher viewership. “DNP-Rests” virtually disappear.
2040
The NBA merges its five affiliated global leagues into a 110-team entity that spans five continents. Thanks to new hypersonic airliners, which travel at nearly 4,000 mph, the NBA’s “original” 30 teams now play regular-season games against rival squads from Beijing to Buenos Aires.
-KEVIN ARNOVITZ
MMA in the year …
2025
Advancements in virtual reality allow athletes to “spar” during camp, without absorbing brain trauma. This way, they’re prepared for the physical demands of a bout, but avoid potentially concussive blows or cuts that could jeopardize their fight. The virtual reality simulations afford the timing drills they require.
2030
The practice of weight cutting is finally abolished. Whereas today, athletes will typically cut anywhere from 8 to 15 percent of their body weight the day before a contest, by 2030, sophisticated (and affordable) medical instruments will ensure no athlete is dehydrated, or in any danger, at any point leading up to a bout.
2040
The UFC partners with several international promotions to host a global event, in which each promotion sends several champions to compete for a “universal belt” — a belt that will come with a hefty, hefty sponsorship tag. Not every weight class is represented each year, and divisions rotate and are agreed upon well. The arrangement is initially built on a one-year deal, but is such a roaring success, it becomes an annual event.
–BRETT OKAMOTO
NFL in the year …
2025
Tom Brady declares that he’ll be seeking his 10th Super Bowl ring after the NFL announces that defenses will no longer be allowed any contact with QBs. With the league already prohibiting hitting passers below the knees, above the shoulders and after the ball is released, making QBs, like punters, fully off limits was a small step to take.
2030
NFL teams begin using virtual reality training for weekly game preparation. The technology is especially useful
for QBs-by now accustomed to never suffering so much as a bruise. Other skill players also soon come to prefer practicing against a perfect re-creation of
their opponent. Scout-team defenses become obsolete.
2040
With ratings and profits declining, the NFL splits into two factions: “traditional” and “future” football, in the same way MMA’s explosion was a byproduct of boxing’s decline. While traditional football retains the player-protecting rules, future football promotes the violent hits that popularized the game.
-DAVID FLEMING
Olympics in the year …
2025
By 2025, Olympic organizers will be one year into the public-events era of the Games. Paris 2024 organizers have already announced they will hold a first-of-its-kind public marathon on the same course on the same day as the Olympic race, in an effort to make the Games more appealing to the masses. When entries fill up quickly, the committee expands the public competitions and invites non-Olympic qualifiers onto the cycling and triathlon courses and into surfing’s wave pool. Not wanting to stop there, organizers announce they will award gold, silver and bronze medals to the top Olympic Weekend Warrior finishers.
2030
In a bid to add more women to the Olympics, but not increase the size of the Games, the Olympics began adding more mixed-gender events in 2014 — luge and figure skating saw coed events added in Sochi. In Pyeongchang, the IOC added mixed-doubles curling, alpine skiing and biathlon. In Tokyo, co-ed events will debut in track-and-field, swimming, table tennis and triathlon. So, in 2030, the Games will add even more: coed snowboarding halfpipe doubles, ski jumping doubles and co-ed hockey.
2040
Due to the enormous financial burden placed on host cities, fewer cities bid to host the Olympics. In an overhaul of the Olympic bid process — and in a bid to save the Games — the IOC selects four winter and four summer sites and begins rotating the Games between them. The 2040 summer Olympics (and every subsequent summer Games) is held simultaneously in Los Angeles (soccer, triathlon, skateboarding), Barcelona (athletics, fencing, rugby, swimming), Paris (surfing, cycling, skateboarding, gymnastics) and Munich (rowing, field hockey, equestrian, golf, table tennis).
–ALYSSA ROENIGK
MLB in the year …
2025
When closer Edwin Diaz gives up a walk-off homer in the 2025 World Series, Mets fans don’t just have to accept that he hung a fat slider. Thanks to high-speed, hi-def Edgertronic cameras, thousands of frames per second of video now allows NYC residents the excruciating torture of watching the meatball leaving Diaz’s fingers.
2030
Hostilities between MLB’s Robo-Umper and Human-Elementer factions are suspended by a compromise: Human plate umps will continue to call balls and strikes but will be alerted by a mild electric shock, within seconds, whenever they miss a call. The definition of a “miss”? Any pitch that the majority of umps, in the same count, have called differently in the past.
2040
Revenue from between-pitch ads, like the six-second split-screen ones, has come to dwarf ad revenue between innings, creating a strange incentive. After failing to speed up games, MLB embraces a slower pace. The 20-second pitch clock from the early 2020s is replaced by a 40-second clock. “Take your time,” the commissioner mandates. “They can wait.”
-SAM MILLER
NHL in the year …
2025
The legalization of sports gambling across North America leads to a surprising spike in NHL interest, as instantaneous in-game prop betting through smart televisions-with wagers as low as $1 on who wins the next faceoff-transforms the hockey viewing experience. Gary Bettman is still commissioner.
2030
Unis get techy: Players don temperature-controlled bodysuits with integrated sensors, allowing teams to measure muscle usage and track movements. Rotating advertisements on NHL sweaters — borrowing from the NBA’s “smart jerseys” — cause fan backlash; Commissioner Bettman, unmoved, rakes in the cash.
2040
Debate rages over player cybernetic enhancement, from bionic legs to telescopic goalie arms. Bettman, whose uploaded consciousness now runs the NHL, approves the use of cloning to create a team of Wayne Gretzkys of varying sizes and mullet lengths. Jaromir Jagr, at 68, leads the NHL in scoring.
–GREG WYSHYNSKI