If this is the future of sports, I’ll not learn how to play golf

In 2021, at the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Commonwealth Games Federation (GCF) General Assembly voted to back a new Strategic Roadmap which provides potential future hosts with the ability to be “innovative and creative” when putting together the sports’ programme.

According to GFC, this will allow hosts the ability to propose entirely new sports, relevant to their nation or culture, to enhance cultural showcasing and community engagement.

Under the new proposal, athletics and swimming will be the only two compulsory sports, given their historical place, and have appeared on the programme since the first Games at Hamilton in 1930.

The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, seemed to have fitted in well with this new positioning considering the sports that were held in the English city recently.

It makes one wonder what the future of traditional sports is.

Clearly, commercialization and entertainment are taking prominence in the selection of which sports will be included in a multi-games event like the Commonwealth and the Olympics.

The Birmingham Commonwealth Games featured, for the first time, e-sports that would not have ordinarily been considered a competitive sport in the past.

But one of the most shocking game inclusion for me was beach volleyball at the expense of traditional volleyball. Neither men’s nor women’s volleyball featured in Birmingham.

The same could be said of basketball where, instead of the traditional five-a-side game Birmingham staged three-by-three basketball, that is played on only one half of the court.

There was another big surprise for everybody -- the staging of women cricket while the men’s version was not included.

So, what’s the future of traditional sports with commercialization and entertainment taking centre stage at major events?

One would wonder whether sports like volleyball are deemed to be no longer entertaining or if they are not able to be commercialized.

Without a doubt, and as seen before, a sport like men’s cricket is definitely one that can be of equal entertainment and commercialization.

The organisers of the event argue that the inclusion of the new versions will bring a young and diverse audience to the Games, which is a fair argument.

Boasting full stadiums throughout both the London 2012 Olympic Games and Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, for instance, it was believed that beach volleyball would enjoy similar success for Birmingham 2022 and indeed it did.

The crowds were electrifying and the action explosive. But does that justify not incorporating traditional sports into the Games?

Is it a case of seen that-done-that and now we are looking for something new or is it purely on the commercialization aspect of it?

It will not be surprising in future, to see the Games feature paddle tennis as opposed to conventional lawn tennis as we know it.

Based on this, I will be uninterested in learning to play a sport like golf because I have a feeling that in the coming years, nobody will bother playing all the traditional 18 holes, and spending four hours on a golf course.

Instead, you might as well become an expert in putting or playing hole-in-one as that’s the future of the sport as I see it today.