Anyone looking at sport today finds that we are facing a state of intense change; it is taken for granted that the only constant right now is change. Everything changes, and therefore we are facing a successive chain of changes over the next fifty years. Here, the future of sport will be discussed through several angles.

The first is the nature of athletic performance. Athletic performance is in continuous development, in light of reliance on modern training and technological methods to develop players’ performance levels, and reliance on artificial intelligence to analyze players’ performance and provide recommendations that would contribute to improving motor and skill performance, and to develop the traits that can make the difference in players’ performance and contribute to developing it significantly and noticeably—leading to change and development in the training system as a whole. This can be inferred from the development of players’ motor performance over the past fifty years compared to what came before, especially since some sports fields in the second division of the English league have witnessed the appearance of a technical director using artificial intelligence technology, which indicates a rapidly accelerating change toward the future.

From an organizational and administrative standpoint, there is no doubt that the sports administrative environment will witness major development with increased reliance on technology and digital transformation, within a space that accelerates day after day. We find restructuring and change in job titles and the requirements of each, to keep pace with the requirements of the age, as well as reliance on expert systems as accelerators of performance and as a way to reduce human errors resulting from a lack of experience and competence. We find that the International Olympic Committee and sports federations work to update their structures and work systems around the clock, relying on the latest modern administrative methods, attempting to digitize all tasks and administrative operations, and automate administrative processes. Player transfer processes are currently carried out in a fully digital manner, which indicates what we are heading toward in the future.

As for the media and marketing side, there is much to be said: we are facing very rapidly accelerating leaps, whether at the level of television and digital transmission and broadcasting, which carries within it major development in the world of sport through reliance on concepts of digital media and virtual events that can convey full events virtually through hologram technologies. It is expected that work in this context will increase in the coming fifty years.

On the marketing side, it is the biggest market that achieves strong attraction for investors, with the emergence of a new player on the scene: blockchain—technologies that have appeared very strongly on the international stage, to the point that there have been player transfers and the buying and selling of clubs carried out through digital currencies. This indicates a complete transformation in the shape of sport through reliance on blockchain and Bitcoin—currencies that allow fans and investors to play active roles in the sports system—and this is what the coming few years will bring us, as change is coming and accelerating greatly.

Here, attention will also be drawn to a new player that has recently emerged strongly in the sports arena: electronic games (esports). These games are witnessing major development in the sports investment market, and the largest global markets in America and China compete in them. The numbers of followers and practitioners of this sport and its international tournaments are continuously increasing to the point that it has begun to threaten, to a great extent, the throne of real sport. What increased the value and role of electronic games was the recent crisis of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), which stopped life in sports stadiums, signaling the beginning of a new life through electronic games. The esports market therefore witnessed major growth and is expected to develop and grow even more in the coming years.

Here, it is emphasized that what has been mentioned above of these manifestations is not a matter of fantasy or predictions, but rather a reality we live today and that continues with us into tomorrow, and we must be up to the development and rapid change witnessed by the sports scene. Examples of change and development are many, and very many.

Written by Dr. Hamada Al-Antabli.