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Column: Future of sports is almost unimaginable ... and happening now

From left, Union-Tribune columnist Kevin Acee, Seals President Steve Govett, 1904 FC President Bob Watkins, Padres chief marketing officer Wayne Partello and San Diego State Athletic Director J.D. Wicker listen to Seals V.P. Josh Gross speak at the Sport FWD conference at UCSD.
(Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)
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It is a matter of when, not if, we will be faced with the reality of genetically engineered humans competing in the sports we love.

There are men in their mid-20s making upwards of $1 million playing video games because there are millions of other millennials sitting in front of their computers watching them do so.

Sports venues around the world (including those in San Diego) will feature far more communal areas and technological innovations that are a nod to the fact the games themselves simply are no longer enough to entertain the divergent masses.

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These are some of the things that scattered my brain in figurative pieces around the Qualcomm Innovation Institute on Thursday at UC San Diego.

The Sport FWD Conference put on by Attention Span and San Diego Sports Innovators was the kind of event so good and jam-packed with mind-boggling information and predictions that you almost had to be there. If you were there, you wish you could experience it again in order to make sure you heard some things correctly. And it really would take three times to begin to comprehend what is on the horizon in terms of technology and biology and their implications to sports.

The world of sports is being expanded and altered to the point that I don’t know whether to be thrilled or horrified. I don’t think I’m alone in being both.

Digital biologist Raymond McCauley, who in an hourlong presentation that touched on the “remixed athlete” clearly elucidated the benefits of biohacking as it pertains to curing disease and improving and lengthening lives, has his reservations about how the science applies to sports.

“The part I don’t like now is a lot of people are trying a lot of things just to see if it works,” he said. “… Some of it will probably work really well. Some of it won’t work. Some of it will cause some horrible complications and death.

“Where I’m from, my upbringing in Texas, there is an ingrained belief that everybody should be able to go to hell their own way, that you should be able to do things and try things. At the same time, there are things I’m worried about that people are doing.”

We’re talking about the cell-altering technology that has cured a patient of AIDS and made testing for disease easier and quicker and has so many positive applications. We’re also talking about someone being able to shave time off their 100-yard dash or improve their eyesight or increase their muscle mass.

It doesn’t take much. It’s being done, and it’s not that far away from being done reliably and regularly.

“I think fairly quickly,” said McCauley, chair of the Biotech Track at Singularity University, a Silicon Valley think tank. “In the next 5-10 years we’ll see a lot of folk who are doing piecemeal upgrades.”

And, similar to how those creating performance-enhancing drugs have always been at least one step ahead of those trying to regulate them, there is virtually no detection mechanism to know whether someone had the cells in their liver altered to change their metabolism and supercharge glucose efficiency so they can recover faster.

The ethical implications of this are infinite and might just result in the public shrugging and going, “Cool. Let’s watch superhumans play basketball.”

Far less troubling, but almost as fascinating, was a panel on esports. Video games as sports.

You think UFC is cutting edge? Let me tell you about Overwatch, a video game in which teams of people save the world in the future. There is a 12-team Overwatch league. Franchises sold for upwards of $15 million apiece.

You think this is niche. Maybe in the global sense. But mainstream is taking notice.

Turner Sports broadcasts the ELeague. Yes, on TBS. It is, of course, also online. I logged on while writing this Friday afternoon. I was one of more than 314,000 people concurrently watching a group of 20-somethings shoot at each other.

The leagues us old folks watch — you know, the leagues where actual athletes play actual sports — have jumped in as well.

The NBA and NFL and MLS are in various stages of launching leagues, wherein players are drafted to teams and then paid six-figures (plus benefits) to play the NBA2K and Madden and FIFA video games against each other in a season.

This sort of diversion is why it’s not surprising that the local sports executives that spoke at a panel at the conference discussed at length how the future sporting event will include more in-stadium entertainment options, enhanced video, video games and seating that is both communal and closer to the action.

The possibilities for the days to come seemed endless on this day.

kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com

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