Second Life brings new meaning to “live” sports

Two trends we should be watching that may impact our little world of sports fan, attention domination:

First, the rise of video games and virtual worlds.

Video Games have become the biggest pastime of adults, not children. According to the Entertainment Software Assoc., gamers under 18 actually make up fewer than 1/3 of all players, and people over 50 make up 25 percent. Nearly 1 in 5 adults play Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). Second life has over 5 million registrants. Video games sales in the US are bigger than movie sales worldwide. (Microtrends)

There are real people spending real time and real money on video games, both online and off, and many of these games relate to sports…just not the sports we’re used to playing (and selling).ValleyWag doesn’t necessarily like it

Next, the “nichification” of sports.

In the past 25 years, except for football, interest in the Big Four sports has been plummeting. Baseball is actually the favorite sport of only 11 percent of the US – having not technically been America’s passtime since the 70s. Basketball had its lowest TV ratings ever in the 2005-06 season. Hockey viewership is so miserable thta, in 2005, ESPN stopped airing it altogether…Teen NFL viewers under 18 now hold 10 percent of the market, down from 13 percent in the 90s, and the number of teens who play football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey has fallen off as much as 23 percent over this time.

…(yet) sports in America are far from declining. They’re just shifting from a communal rite to a personal one…now, sports helps us retreat – often alone – and often to the mountains or the woods or the water. (Microtrends).

What’s your opinion? Where is this heading? Will fans leave the stadiums and turn off their TVs to play paintball online with their virtual friends?