Raw Report: We closely follow the latest trends in extreme sports and outdoor culture. Here’s a trend report from our friends at Delaware North concerning the evolution of Extreme Sports in 2020.
Rise of Extreme Sports
By 2020, extreme sports will challenge professional and collegiate team sports for the title of most-watched category of sports content. With 100 hours of GoPro video currently being uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day, and sales of action cameras growing nearly 50% annually and projected to hit 9 million in 2018, the extreme sports juggernaut looks unstoppable.
Fueled by easy recording and upload technology like GoPro — paired with YouTube and over-the-top broadcasters — interest, participation, and performance levels in action sports are soaring. Today they’re a blip on the screen compared to the big business of professional sports, but participation in action and adventure sports has surpassed conventional sports at the recreational level.
And it’s not just online video driving that growth. San Francisco-based Strava Inc. is the foremost example of the competitive feedback loop underlying the explosion of action sports participation. Outdoor athletes track their performances via Strava’s apps or their own biometric devices, then upload their results to Strava’s database, which becomes a de facto book of records for every trail run and every 100-mile route biked — a standing, always-on challenge that drives performance levels higher daily.
A group that includes owners of the Boston Celtics and San Francisco 49ers recently placed a bet on the explosion of interest in action sports by investing in Street League Skateboarding, a professional circuit headed by skater and MTV star Rob Dyrdek.
Dozens of new sports will emerge. In 20 years, sports like skysurfing will look as old-fashioned as the shot put. Advances in exoskeletons, prosthetics, and, yes, rocket packs will herald a golden age of new sporting competitions.
Exoskeleton Tech
Exoskeletons will be implemented at first for their incredible enhancement of athlete protection, followed by motorized advances that increase strength and speed.
Threat to the growth of action sports
LIMITED ACCESS — “NOT ON MY WAVE”
With the growth and popularity of sports like surfing, skiing, and snowboarding, access to the critical and finite resource — good, uncrowded conditions — is limited.
The best surf spots across the South Pacific are turning into private resorts, such as the ones in the Mentawai Islands and Fiji.
In addition, when we consider climate change over the next decade, what sports will either cease to exist or be forced to change location?
Solution
The endless, perfectly shaped wave is coming to inland communities and will open access to thousands of new surfers. The WaveGarden was prototyped in central Spain, and a full production facility opened in 2015 in North Wales, UK.
Previously unrideable waves are being conquered with a polarizing new technology, the jet-powered surfboard. In November 2014, famous multi-sport Maui athlete Kai Lenny rode the massive Jaws surf break going to the left — long considered too dangerous even for tow-in surfers. He rode it safely and escaped the inside rocks on the JetSurf board.
Examples of the emergence of new action sports
Skydiving: outer-space diving
Triathlons: Tough Mudder obstacle races
Extreme skiing: skiing with a parachute canopy