In Rituals and Traditions today, we talked about the future of these things. How do you do that? Peer into my crystal ball, students, and see what I know, for I have thought long and hard about the hybridity of historic rituals with digital-first engagement. This is all about audience immersion, increasing fan accessibility, perhaps more personalized experiences, fancy gear and swag, and evolutions in youth sport.
Blending tech with tradition is going to be the goal in that future. This is going to further boost E-sports, more advanced virtual reality for athletes and fans. It’ll change how we experience live sport, we’ll be talking about mediated attendance which will become a ritual unto itself, and, what I’m excited about, historical reproductions. That led us to a discussion of alt-athletes, which is a term that never took off. Weekend warriors was just better alliteration, I guess. But the idea is sound. People want to play, and millennials are a huge marketplace here. The numbers I found said something like 76 percent of the people there, and much of it is about turning solo activity into team fitness and shared achievement. This looks like club teams and loose orgs, but they’ll vary with varied sports. Ultimately, this could become about finding meaning in sport and identity in exercise and recreation.
Also, you can turn that into a spectator event. In 2021 57,000 people gathered to watch the Crossfit Games. The US Open of surfing draws hundreds of thousands of spectators.
You wonder how many personal rituals are emerging in those athletes, and their fans.
We watched this documentary today in Criticism. It’s a good film, but this is the only clip they’ve put on YouTube, and it in no way explains things. Allow me.
In March 2008 — this story is getting old and I should probably take it out of rotation, but it’s good — a tornado bore down on downtown Atlanta. At the same time, the SEC basketball tournament was underway. A last second desperation shot forced overtime, and kept a bunch of people in the arena. And the arena got hit by the storm. The thought has always been that, perhaps, that shot saved a lot of people’s lives. Roll Tide. The tournament must go on, however, and there are other storms, the venue is unsafe, there are logistical considerations and there’s just a lot going on. We never think, really, when we go to a sporting event, about the hundreds and thousands of personnel hours that go into making an event happen, making it safe, making it enjoyable, and here they had to change plans mid-tournament, with the March Madness selection program just hours away.
Also, Georgia had an improbably run in that tournament. Still not sure how that happened. They weren’t good, but they played over their heads, and so the documentary is about that, too.
(My alma mater was hilariously in and out of the conference tournament in just the one game.)
And, yes, I spent part of the documentary reflexively glancing out the classroom windows. You just don’t break habits of living in places where you can get tornadoes.
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
