The impact of technology on sports – A prospective study

Nicolas Frevel, Daniel Beiderbeck and Sascha L. Schmidt

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2022, vol. 182, issue C

Abstract: Rapid technological progress and digitalization have considerably changed the role of technology in sports in the past two decades. As the human limits of performance have been reached in many disciplines, reaching future limits will increasingly depend on technology. While this represents progress in how athletes train and compete, similar developments await sports managers in the way they lead sports organizations and sports consumers in the way they consume and engage with sports. Using the SportsTech Matrix (i.e., a framework to capture how different types of technologies provide solutions to different user groups in sports), we examine how technology will impact sports in the future. We present a Delphi-based prospective study with quantitative and qualitative assessments from 92 subject matter experts for six future projections and 35 non-Delphi prospective survey items. We find that, by 2030, technology will significantly impact all three user groups in sports: athletes, consumers, and managers. For athletes, experts anticipate technology to play a major role for sporting performance improvements. For consumers, the consumption of sports content will continue to change significantly. For management, new types of manager profiles in terms of backgrounds and skill sets would be desirable. We discuss two possible future scenarios: (1) a probable future and (2) a game changer. Our findings should provide relevant insights for decision-makers and other stakeholders in sports and raise promising directions for future research.

Keywords: Sportstech; SportsTech matrix; Technology; Sports; Delphi; Prospective study; Future study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162522003626
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:182:y:2022:i:c:s0040162522003626

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121838

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().