Asking a die-hard sports spectator to predict how we will spectate in the future can cause terrible cognitive dissonance. The sports fan is not oriented toward the future; he is the retrospective creature par excellence. He travels forward with his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. His preferred modes of spectating are historical--the highlight reel; the classic NFL film with its sonorous, Homeric narration; and, most perfectly, the instant replay, which, of course, instantly historicizes the present.

Obviously, the essential need to spectate will endure into the distant future. We can't talk sports unless we watch sports. And talk we must. Sports blather will remain the lingua franca in bars, elevators and doctors' waiting rooms around the world. In 2025, no matter how far-flung or misbegotten a place he finds himself in, man will always be able to strike up a lively conversation with the opening gambit "Livingston Bramble, Boom-Boom Mancini, 1985. That was a fight."

We will continue to watch sports because it is one of the last areas in our life in which we can experience the unexpected, the improvisational. But how we watch will change radically. The two primary styles of live spectating--the self-aggrandizing preening of the ringside celebrity and the self-annulling ecstasy of the anonymous face-painted fan--will soon be relics of the past, available only in dioramas in sports museums.

Referring to the Golden Age of the Latin American caudillo, Ryszard Kapuscinski wrote that "stadiums play a double role: in peacetime they are sports venues; in war they turn into concentration camps." Well, in the future, in the synergistic bliss of the globalized economy, stadiums and arenas will simply turn into malls and food courts. The live event--the game itself--will become, at best, a point-of-purchase display. Already, most people attending a basketball game rarely glance at the live action. They watch the Jumbotron screens cantilevered above the court or the monitors mounted in the arena's various saloons and emporiums.

Except for the opportunity to begrudgingly share cheese-drenched nachos with complete strangers or stand in line and chat with other people who also have to urinate badly, there will be no valid reason to attend a live sports event as a spectator. All sports, and especially football, will continue to be better on TV. The only way to sustain interest in actual attendance at sports events in the future will be to incorporate fans into the action. But how?

Recent incidents, such as the projectile-throwing tantrum at the Yankees-Red Sox game at Fenway Park and the abuse of European golfers at the Ryder Cup in Brookline, Mass., suggest an answer: legal hooliganism. Teams will sponsor cells of well-trained, remorseless thugs ready at any moment to storm the field and waylay players. Athletes will be expected to hone those skills necessary to contend with this exciting new variable.

For the rest of us, though, TV will more than suffice. And stunning technological advances will revolutionize our viewing pleasure. Computer-enhanced television will enable us to customize the content of broadcast sports coverage. Let's say, for example, that you only want to watch players groom themselves and spit. The new personal-p.o.v. digital technology will allow you to remain focused on any player, on the field or off, who's picking his nose, adjusting his protective cup or spewing tobacco juice--without the constant interruption of superfluous play-by-play coverage.

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