Mechanized Stadium of the Future (1958)

The November 2, 1958 edition of Closer Than We Think featured a "mechanized stadium."

The stadium of tomorrow might very well be adaptable to a variety of athletic and other events, thereby solving a practical problem that has long plagued sports promoters.

The mechanized arena depicted here contains self-propelled sectional grandstands made of a new lightweight high tensile aluminum. Such seating areas would be maneuverable and could be properly positioned for the event at hand with little difficulty. Thus the stadium would be as suitable for a baseball game as it would be for football, boxing or hockey.

And not only would such a stadium bring spectators right up to where the action took place - but as an added touch there might be an adjustable mobile glass roof to protect them from the elements.

Next week: "Turnpike Jet Lines"

Many thanks to Tom Zmudzinski for providing this difficult to find strip.

See also:
Sports Fans of the Year 2000 (1967)
Mile Run in 3:41 by Year 2000 (1965)
Lunar High Jump (1979)
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)
Zero-Gravity Football (1981)
Future Without Football (Daily Review, 1976)
"Grasshopper" Golf Cart (1961)

Sports Fans of the Year 2000 (1967)

The August 20, 1967 Progress-Index (Petersburg, VA) ran a piece titled, "Hard Times Facing Joe Fan," about the overcrowding of sports stadiums that was sure to come with exponential population growth.

My favorite quote of the article comes from the only source, real estate developer Joseph Timan: "With unprecedented leisure time on their hands, millions of sports fans will want to patronize more than one team."

The cartoon at right, reading, "Bleachers $8," appeared in the July 30, 1967 Lima News (Lima, OH) publication of the article. Adjusted for inflation $8 in 1967 is a little over $50 in 2008 currency.

NEW YORK (NEA) - It is the year 2000 and you want a ticket to a baseball or a basketball game. You figure it will be just like today, walk up to the box office, push your money over the counter and buy a reserved seat for $2.50.

Forget it.

This opinion comes from one Joseph Timan, city planner and president of Horizon Land Corp., a real estate development company in Tucson, Ariz.

Timan made his prediction following a Horizon-sponsored sociological study of future planning problems in metropolitan areas.

The study revealed that city populations are expected to double and triple by the year 2000. This means there will be two to four times more sports fans in the next 30-40 years. Stadium capacity will remain relatively the same.

"Stadiums could be built to seat 150,000" TIman says, "but watching a sporting event in a structure this size would be like watching a flea circus from a block away.

"Besides, the crushing chaos of getting this much humanity in and out of such a facility makes management of today's World Series crowds a simple routine by comparison."

Because of the increased number of fans and the lack of space, tickets, Timan says, will be sold months and in some instances, seasons in advance.

"Even third baseball and football leagues won't meet the demands for tickets," Timan said. "With unprecedented leisure time on their hands, millions of sports fans will want to patronize more than one team."

To obtain a ticket, the average fan is going to need influence as well as affluence.

"Diamonds, mink and champagne, instead of shirtsleeves and beer, will be commonplace in the bleacher section at ball games," Timan continued.

"These sports will no longer be for the masses. The box seats, upper stands and bleachers will be filled up with junior and senior executives - and mostly senior at that. The rest of us will have to be content to see sports over television.

"Prices for a bleacher seat that goes for $2 today will sell for $8 because of the great demand and limited supply. Box seats, for those lucky enough to get them, will bring $20 or more."

Far fetched?

"Not at all," Timan said, "It's a simple matter to extrapolate from history and project into the future. Consider these facts:

"In the past 30 years the number of fans attending major sporting events have more than tripled while population has increased about 50 per cent.

"Consider salaries of sports greats of 30-40 years ago. Today they're easily four or five time bigger. By 2000 they can be expected to quadruple again.

"Now, larger stadiums are being built, but they are very close to maximum possible size for viewing team sports.

"Thirty years ago bleacher seats were going to 50 cents while they are generally four times this amount today.

"Tickets to many major league football and hockey games are already almost impossible to obtain, unless you have 'pull.' Today just try to get a ticket to a hockey game; a big Saturday college game, or a baseball game when the team is on top.

"Multiply these factors by a doubled or triple urban population by the year 2000, a population with many more upper-income people with more leisure time; couple this with the physical limitations of stadiums, and you can't escape the conclusion that soon there won't be enough stadium seats to go around."

It sounds like something out of a Walter O'Malley dream.

See also:
Mile Run in 3:41 by Year 2000 (1965)
Lunar High Jump (1979)
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)
Zero-Gravity Football (1981)
Future Without Football (Daily Review, 1976)
"Grasshopper" Golf Cart (1961)

More French Prints of the Year 2000 (1900)

Hunting and Destroying Microbes

The website Television History has five more French prints which imagine the year 2000. The site claims that 50 such cards, each illustrating different wonders of a hundred years hence, were produced for the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Flying Tennis

Projecting Telescope

Underwater Croquet

Flying Buses


See also:
French Prints Show Year 2000 (circa 1910)
Gardens of Glowing Electrical Flowers (1900)
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Stepped Platform Railway (1890)
Moving Sidewalk (1900)
Moving Sidewalk Mechanics (1900)
Going to the Opera in the Year 2000 (1882)

Taller Women by Year 2000 (1949)

The December 24, 1949 Daily Capital News (Jefferson City, MO) ran an Associated Press article titled, "Authorities Predict Gals Will 'Rise' to New Heights by 2000." An excerpt along with the piece in its entirety appear below.

"Nature seems bent on producing a new race of Amazons. Within the next 50 years you'll find the emancipated woman engaging actively in such sports as football, baseball and soccer. She'll think nothing of chopping the wood and acting as family car mechanic."

See also:
Women and the Year 2000 (1967)
Lives of Women to Improve (1923)
Miss A.D. 2000 (Chicago Tribune, 1952)
Future Without Football (Daily Review, 1976)
Feminine Beauty (New York Times, 1909)

Mile Run in 3:41 by Year 2000 (1965)

The September 4, 1965 Press Courier (Oxnard, CA) ran an article titled, "Physiologist sees mile run in 3:41 by year 2000." The entire article appears below.

In case you were wondering, the actual world record in 2000 was 3:43.13, set by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, according to Running Times magazine.

How fast will man run the mile in the year 2000?

The answer, according to Oxford University physiologist B.B. Lloyd, is three minutes, 41 seconds - more than 12 seconds faster than French athlete Michel Jazy's current world mark of 03.53.6.

Lloyd, addressing the annual convention of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, said the trends in record breaking of the past 50 years were likely to continue for the next 50.

Records keep getting broken, he said, because athletes keep getting "greater hearted" - their muscles get more oxygen from the blood pumped to them by the heart.

Thus, he thought the reason for improvement lay not so much in individual skill as in more intensive selection and training, particularly during the final stages of growth.

These were his forecasts for other world marks at the end of the century.

100 yards: 8.6 seconds, now 9.1.
440 yards: 42.4 seconds, now 44.9.
10,000 meters: 26:08.4, now 27:39.4
Marathon: two hours, two minutes, now two hours, 12 minutes. [paleo-future editor's note: Khalid Khannouchi of Morocco held the record in the year 2000 with two hours, five minutes and forty-two seconds.]

Lloyd said the ability of a runner to use oxygen had increased about eight per cent since 1930.

He added:
'There seems no reason why a similar rate of increase should not be seen for the next 50 years, particularly as the maximum capacity to use oxygen in cross country skiers has already been shown as six per cent larger than that of record breaking miler John Landy.

And he forecast that women may overtake men in sprint events. Women, he said, can use their original stores of energy faster than men.

See also:
Lunar High Jump (1979)
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)

Zero-Gravity Football (1981)

This illustration of "zero-gravity football" appears in the 1981 book School, Work and Play (World of Tomorrow).

Zero-gravity football is a great sport, but it can only be played in a space colony or a space station, where there are zones in which everything is weightless. The players zoom through the air, powered by small motors in their backpacks. Laser lines mark out the field.

See also:
"Grasshopper" Golf Cart (1961)
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)
Future Without Football (Daily Review, 1976)
Lunar High Jump (1979)

"Grasshopper" Golf Cart (1961)

The March 5, 1961 Chicago Tribune ran this Closer Than We Think! strip, showcasing the golf cart of the future. Hey, it can't all be starving children and future shock.

To save steps for the par-shooter of the future, a Tokyo firm has designed a remote-control golf cart, based on the same principles that permit a television viewer to change channels without leaving his chair. Once our golfer arrived at the edge of a green or bad rough, he would walk to the ball, take his shot, and then summon his cart by voice or button as he moved along toward the nineteenth hole.

Still another advance, lacking in the Japanese concept, lies ahead. It's the "ground effect machine" principle, through which the cart could float on a cushion of air instead of riding on the turf. No more fairway flattening in the future!

See also:
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)
Future Without Football (Daily Review, 1976)
Lunar High Jump (1979)

Future Without Football (Daily Review, 1976)

An article in the April 6, 1976 Daily Review (Hayward, California) ran with the headline, "Students see future without football."

The 21st century will see the demise of football, a cure for cancer and cities under the sea, according to some bright ninth grade students.

A special "futurology" class at suburban Milford Junior High School also figured the next century will mean bigger government control over more people, a solution to air pollution and new mass transit systems.

The 17 "gifted students" at Milford reached their conclusions after interviewing government and research firm officials, visiting universities and taking several other field trips. Four teachers who helped design the course also are writing a group PhD thesis about the experience.

Student group projects included models of an underwater city, a 21st century home, airport and school. One group designed a 21st century game to be played by two persons in a small cubicle to save space.

"Football won't exist because space will be short," said teacher Ronald Herbers.

In explaining to parents what the "futurology" project was about, the teachers explained, "We hope to help them (students) see that the future is not uncontrollable."

See also:
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)

Lunar High Jump (1979)

As promised, today we have a highlight from the 2020 Olympic Games; the lunar high jump. These Games will, of course, take place on the moon.

One of my favorite things about this image is the "special equipment" needed to replace the bar. At first glance I assumed the bubble enclosing the man in the vehicle was to protect him and that air was being pumped in. I then realized that the athletes don't need the same type of protection.


A reoccurring element of the paleo-future is the expectation of superfluous design. That is to say, we make things appear different and beautiful because we can. With a few design modifications the utility vehicle could be much more practical, but where's the fun in that? I guess that's why we fall in love with the future and why dystopian images are that much more jarring.

This image is featured in the 1979 book Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century (World of the Future) which is a volume in the compilation book The Usborne Book of the Future: A Trip in Time to the Year 2000 and Beyond.

See also:
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)
Sea City 2000 (1979)
Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century (1979)
Ristos (1979)
The Future World of Transportation

Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)

For those of you who can't get enough of the book Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century, here are the Olympic Games of the year 2020 which, of course, will be on the moon.

After a Moon city is established the 'Moonies' will "want the prestige of holding a major world event." Their idea is the Olympic Games of 2020, complete with a stadium covered by a huge plexiglass dome where "the visitors from Earth will have a fine view of their home world."


Stay tuned for a great illustration of the "Lunar high jump" coming next week.

See also:
Sea City 2000 (1979)
Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century (1979)
Ristos (1979)
The Future World of Transportation

Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century (1979)

Examining the cover to the 1979 book Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century you can instantly feel its paleo-futuristic glow. With colonies in space, solar heated houses, amazing sports, (which obviously take place in freefall), and wristwatch TV it's almost too much for just one blog to handle, but we shall try. Stay tuned for more as we crack this book wide open in the coming weeks.


A special thanks to JesseM for turning me on to this book series after reading my post about the EPCOT book The Future World of Transporation.