'Digitalism' - The Next Phase in Sport?
If you have studied sport from an academic approach you may well be familiar with the term “post-modernism”.
Although having a variety of other connotations in different fields, the nomenclature “post-modern” in sports is widely used to denote the time period (or epoch) in which we are currently living.
Put broadly, sporting academics agree on a transition in the mid-to-late 20th century from an era of modern sport to post-modern sport.
From my perspective modern sport is best defined as what we consider ‘traditional’ sport, for example football, rugby, cricket, tennis, hockey and netball to name a few.
Although each of these aforementioned sports has their own unique characteristics, fundamentally they are incredibly similar in the fact that participating in such is governed by a strict set of rules, defined time limits and a clear definition of what constitutes winning and losing.
We can’t forget that in their very nature all sports are made-man constructions and the format in which sports are designed are heavily influenced by the time in which they are created.
Indeed, football matches are said to have been made 90 minutes long as that was the maximum amount of time that there would be daylight for after workers were allowed to down tools early on a Wednesday for recreation. With floodlights having not been created yet, play was forced to cease.
Post-modern sport is in many ways was an evolution of modern sport and the sports or derivations/sub-cultures which can be classified as post-modern sport are often referred to by other names, including action or extreme sports.
Take skateboarding as an example. It is a sport* that deliberately chose not to embody the same rules and structures of modern sport and allowed the individual to choose when and how they participated.
*Many people wouldn’t define skateboarding as a sport, and examining how sport is defined is a topic fully deserving of its own individual article.
No longer did you have to turn up at 10AM on a Saturday to play a pre-organised fixture with your team. Post-modern sports at their very nature give full autonomy to the individual over every aspect of their participation.
We now live in a time where the demands from our work life are becoming ever greater and our leisure time increasingly scarce. It is thus unsurprising why so many people (of all ages) choose to turn to post-modern sports (skateboarding, stand-up paddle boarding, snowboarding, mountain biking, to name just a few), where they can participate in a way that conveniently fits their lifestyle.
However I’m incredibly sad to say I believe that post-modern sport may well have experienced it’s ‘golden era’ and be on a decline.
Whilst these sports offered great benefits for the individual (I haven’t even scratched the surface of that here), the ultimate failure of their continued growth and prosperity has been the almost osmotic absorption of facets from modern sport.
When skateboarding became an Olympic sport I was truly devastated.
It seems completely myopic and an absolute contradiction that skateboarding should be absorbed in to the Olympic family, when at its very core skateboarding was created to be the antithesis of the Olympic movement.
Post-modern sports were created as an improvement and evolution of modern sport, yet all of a sudden we’ve brought in the governance, competition structures and pathways of modern sport without questioning whether or not they are actually beneficial for the sport and the participants?
I firmly believe that at its very core sports participation is a noble pursuit that should be performed to help you in your wider life. Success or failure on the sports field is not the be all and end all, instead the importance is on the lessons you learn, the character-building moments and ultimately the active dimension of participation that keeps you physically healthy and mentally well.
The advent of social media has undoubtedly played a part in the demise of post-modern sporting culture and I would argue from 2010 onwards greed from a wide range of actors and stakeholders in the world of sport has led for a pursuit to squeeze all the dollars they can from the activity causing a loss of perspective on why they actually took up the pursuits in the first place.
So what comes next?
I believe we will enter a new age (or epoch) of sporting culture, one I use the term ‘digitalism’ to define.
You cannot ignore the exponential increase of ‘E-sports’ participants and fans and with our growing interest and dependence on modern technology, I predict we may only have 10-15 years left before the norm for sports participation is to put on our virtual reality equipment and play in a digital space.
And what wider culture will this type of sports participation bring with it? Indeed digital technologies have created a whole new wave of young entrepreneurs using streaming and online video platforms to make a very comfortable living playing E-sports, however it also begs the question how many of these ‘players’ are concerned about making a valuable contribution and doing good in the world? Or are they more concerned with doing whatever it takes to add another zero to the end of their yearly earnings?
In my own research and interaction with sports academics far more qualified than I to talk on this subject, although there is varying belief on what the future will hold for sport, there is a consensus that a key component of sport will always be the physical interaction with nature, whether that be the feel of grass and turf under our feet as we run along the pitch, the cold, varying consistency of snow as we carve a turn in the mountains or the feeling of being afloat on the sea balancing on a surfboard riding down a breaking wave, perfectly in tune with nature.
It would be remiss here not to touch on the ‘simulation theory’ that notable members of today’s society including Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson have postulated upon. That if you assume any rate of progression at all in the world of digital video game technology, ultimately we will reach a point where these games are so realistic that they will be indistinguishable from real life and maybe the sporting reality we are actually experiencing is already a video game and not base reality. Maybe we are already in the digitalism era and who knows how far along?
TO CONCLUDE…
If there is one thing I’ve experienced firsthand in my own career, it is that anger and frustration against the tide of wider society is an exhausting and pointless endeavour. As much as we may be disappointed with the current climate, all that is within our power as individuals is the ability to act in a way that we hope makes small positive contributions to a better overall society.
Today the vast majority of us will share our opinions and add to this discussion via our posts on social media, whether that’s consciously or subconsciously, and most likely so will the companies and organisations we work for.
If you are posting visual content about your sports participation, I would urge you to consider if what you are doing will be a positive contribution to the overall development of the sporting culture and therefore the beneficial environment the activity creates for success in wider life or whether it is a self-centred post designed with only your own interests at heart.
I don’t for one second have the audacity to say my own usage of social media is perfectly aligned with this goal, the truth is far from it. However it this thought pattern is one I’m trying to more heavily embody in all aspects of my life,
I’m sure that this is a topic I will return to in this continuing series of blogs delving into sport at a deeper level than perhaps is discussed in the mainstream media.
Thank you for taking the time to read,
Jack
@jackwrtompkins
I graduated from the worlds top sporting University Loughborough with First-Class Honours in 2013, going on to work for Lord Sebastian Coe’s London Sports Agency CSM. After five years as a freelance sports video producer, I’ve focused my time on building Southpaw Sport, a sports media production company focused on making a real positive contribution to the world of sport.