What shifts in the ways we play will mean for players, fans and brands

“It’s like riding a bike.” That expression tends to mean two things — it’s a thing that most of us learn how to do, and we can remember how to do even after not doing it for a while because riding a bike doesn’t change. Until it does.

One of the world’s leading racing cyclists fears for his sport and the future of the Tour de France because of climate change. His concern has grown as scorching temperatures have literally melted the pavement. “I wondered what I was doing there, making extreme efforts in extreme temperatures,” Guillaume Martin told Reporterre. “Lately, we realize that in our disordered world, it will be more and more difficult to play sports,” he said. Surfers are similarly concerned and are becoming outspoken activists.

Martin is feeling the impacts from his position at the top of his sport. But what about other pro athletes? Or amateurs who like to play pick-up hoops or soccer? Or kids? How will they adapt so they can continue to play as they want, too?

If, say, it becomes harder to have outdoor play, what does that do to the pipeline of fans? Will kids, no longer sweating it out at summer football camp because it’s 116 degrees every day, still have the same connection to the sport as they do now? Would extreme weather drive us to play more sports indoors and speed growth of video games and other digital, immersive forms of entertainment? Or would reliance on digital entertainment lead to a backlash toward more analog ways of spending our leisure time?

Climate change is just one factor that will influence how we play in the future, who gets to play and where. As usual, the trends wrap around each other with circular influence.

Another key factor is the role of science and technology on how we play. There feels to be no limit to the ways we can manipulate our physiques and our genetics in the future, at least as far as the science is concerned. We’ve already leveraged nutrition, strength conditioning and understanding kinesiology to tone and enhance the way athletes and amateurs play.

Sports commentators watching the University of Michigan football team play this season often remarked on how the offensive line had ”changed their bodies” over the off-season through weight gains and losses.

Play is serious business. Its future will impact sectors spanning food, beverages, sports, streaming, toys, retail and more.

Adding advanced sciences to the mix of tools can reshape sports. The question is less what’s possible and more what will fans accept and what we will ethically embrace? This issue probes these questions a bit further.

Play, of course, isn’t just about kids and sports and video games. It’s about adults, too. Our prior What the Future: Work issue talked about how the way we work will impact the way we live and the way we spend the rest of our time, as well. In the context of play, the future of work will potentially alter work outings, from happy hours to team-building karaoke and pickle ball sessions to the intersection of work and play: gamification of work tasks. But work will also continue to change the hours and locations in which we play.

Playtime won’t necessarily start after 5 p.m. It could be woven into a flexible workday. It won’t necessarily start from the downtown office or the suburban cluster. It could be a central place for each team. Playtime for the post-work gathering could also be at some place virtually.

Raising these disparate questions and hypotheticals is all a means of getting us thinking because the implications are as broad and important as the ways we play. Play is serious business. Its future will impact sectors spanning food, beverage, spirits, sports, streaming, toys, retail and more.

So read on. This issue promises to be fun but written with an eye on the implications. Then, when you’re done, make sure you put the issue down and get out there and play. You’ve earned it.