The Sport Business Future

Rating:
Summary: The Sport Business Future
Review: Aaron Smith and Hans Westerbeek's book "The Sport Business Future" is a promising read that doesn't quite deliver everything it promises. The book claims to be a look into the future of sports as a business. It claims to be part science fiction, and part forecasting tool for sports business managers - it falls short of both goals.

Smith and Westerbeek make the predictable forecasts of genetically engineered atheletes, and virtual stadiums beamed into each fan's living room. However, they do not do a thorough job of forecasting what these possible developments will have on the future of sports, let alone the future of sports as a business.

There is great information about nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence (AI), but again, the authors fail to adequately show how this will impact the sport business future. My understanding of futures forecasting is that a researcher not only looks into possible futures, but also attempts to show how those futures with change the way the world looks at a phenomena, in this case sports as a business. The book claims to be a guide for those in the sports business, a guide to help them prepare for the changes that could be coming. However, there is very little space dedicated to how life will be different for a team owner, but a lot of space dedicated to how life will be different for fans and athletes. That would be fine if the book were titled "The Future of Fans and Athletes," but it wasn't.

Finally, this book is very repetitive. I got the feeling that after the first draft it was only 50 pages long, causing Smith and Westerbeek to find different ways to say the same thing in different chapters. Overall, I did not find the book interesting. My bigger concern though, was that I did not find the book helpful to futures forecasting, or the sporting industry.