Upcoming sports technology that comes with it will be a mind-blowing experience for those who participate as well as those who watch. Forget Ultimate Fighting or Lingerie Football, future sports will involve various levels of professional and recreational athletes.
Space Skydiving
Athletes of the future will include robots, cyborgs, humans who have legally taken performance-enhancing drugs, humans who have illegally doped, bionically-enhanced humans (not as much machinery as cyborgs), mutants of various sorts, "normal" humans and the Special Olympics will have all but gone away.
The venues of sports will also change in the future. For instance space sports will come into vogue less than 5 years from now. Float ball, space sky diving from low earth orbit and space runs (not walks) will be played and viewed by many. Space laser tag using high-powered lasers will also be outlawed.
Multi-Player, Multi-Level ...
Also, in the future sports of various kinds will be played on different levels similar to a life-size 3D chessboard. Wrestling, running, and various ball sports will be played on multi-levels.
In future sports there will be many ethical challenges as technology progresses combining man and machine or genetically-altered man. In fact, future athletes will be nothing like the athletes of today. Faster, stronger, quicker thinking and reacting, partly machine and partly the result of future medical technology that includes future gene splicing and other biological alterations the athlete of tomorrow will be placed in different categories than today in order that they may be participating on "an even playing field".
Cyborg Athletes
The problem is that unlike today, tomorrow the playing field will be changing at a rapid page. Professional athletes may be tempted to for instance injure themselves on purpose in order to get an artificial limb or organ that can help them compete more effectively in a different class.
Just like boxers will go up or down in weight in order to compete more effectively in different weight classes, future sports athletes will alter themselves mechanically, biologically or both to compete in different technological classes. In fact, boxing itself will have a major dilemma in regard to cyborg athletes, trying to figure out what is fair and what is not.
The Robot Wars of today may evolve into cyborg wars in the future. And Robot Wars could also involve a blend of machine and animal such as robotic dog fighting (Michael Vick will probably seed this company with startup money).
Future flying sports will evolve in the next 5 to 10 years as personal aircraft will start going mainstream. So, in the coming years we'll see more jetpack races and other small personal aircraft races taking place a few hundred feet above the ground.
Sky Jet Racing
American football in the future will become more violent, yet more safe and futuristic carbon fiber pads and helmets based upon nanotechnology will be lighter, stronger, distribute impact and lessen injuries better than at any time in history.
Soccer players with bionic legs and baseball pitchers with bionic arms will be problematic for the leagues in regard to ethics at first. Later, as more players become part machine there will be enough to form new leagues and new classes of athletes. The growing pains will be difficult for several years as fans will want to see the "best of the best" compete but will also want an "even playing field" on which to compete.
For the future recreational athlete, technology will be a blessing. For instance right now the U. S. Army is piloting a device, the HULC Exoskeleton that is much less dramatic than the one in the movie Avatar that will unfold and can be put upon a soldier's feet and legs to assist them in running fast in bursts and over longer distances. This future military technology is happening now.
HULC Robotic Exoskeleton
This same device will allow hikers to climb higher mountains like Mt. Everest or challenging climbs. Even those who are partially disabled will be helped in future sports with this mechanically assisted running device.
Future surfboards will help many more people take up this sport than at any other time in history. This is because the combination of gyroscopes, mini-computers and balance mechanisms will help beginners learn faster, stay on the boards longer without falling off or tipping over when surfing.
Rocket-powered jet skis will become a recreational device in and of themselves. And, they will be used to haul surfers out to monster waves and even the occasional rogue wave. There will even be a few "daring idiots" who will try and success in riding tsunami waves at least partway into shore as they are being spotted by those riding high power jet skis and low flying personal aircraft.
Future jet ski
These are just a few of my predictions on how future sports will evolve in the following years. And of course what I would like to hear especially is how you think future sports will evolve?
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