24 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED KIDS GETTY IMAGES (BUTTERFLY); FREDERIC J. BROWN/A F P/GE T T Y IMAGES (STA P L ES CENTER);
SANTIAGO CHAPARRO/JAM MEDIA/GETTY IMAGES (JAI ALAI)
entertaining clients who aren’t even fans.
And boy have micro-transactions made
video games tedious!
So for the sake of better franchise modes
in our games and better crowds in our
stadiums, let’s imagine a world without any
money at all—in sports and otherwise. It
may not be as impossible as it seems. There
is an idea called the post-scarcity economy,
a complicated-sounding term for a potential
future in which no one needs money because
there’s nothing they need to buy, usually
thanks to a technological breakthrough.
This idea is, in part, the premise of the
future in Star Trek: An invention called the
“replicator” can basically 3-D print anything
a human might want, such as a turkey
sandwich, T-shirt, or gold-plated fidget
spinner. So humans spend less time making
stuff and more time traveling through space.
We’re not interested in the galactic
implications of a replicator-like invention,
however. In a future in which humans don’t
need to pass the time doing menial tasks,
what happens to our favorite pastimes?For starters, the very idea of professional
sports would have to change. These days,
going pro means crossing the threshold from
unpaid amateur participation into the lucrative
world of sponsorships and contracts. For many
years, college stars went from unemployed to
millionaires overnight. While NCAA players
have recently started profiting off their own
names, images, and likenesses—blurring the
line of who counts as a pro—the line would
simply cease to exist in a post-scarcity world.
A professional athlete would be anyone who
made a competitive activity their chosen
vocation, whether that’s an unknown marbles
player or LeBron James XXIV.The Pros By Any Other Name
We’d be happy to see certain naming
rights deals end. But we won’t say which,
for fear of angering our advertisers.Jai Resolution
Ta k e money out of the equation
and there’s no reason not to try
out more obscure sports.