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)

2000 A.D. Radio Documentary (1966)

The 1966 radio documentary 2000 A.D.: A documentary on life in the universe in the 21st century, hosted by Chet Huntley, covers some very interesting topics. Government, energy use, leisure time, electronics, use of the oceans, and private enterprise were among the many issues discussed by Mr. Huntley and those he interviewed.

You can listen to the introduction here. A transcript of the program's introduction appears below.

Year 2000!

Now, here is Chet Huntley.

We'll be celebrating a special New Year's Eve. Bells will ring, orchestras will play "Auld Lang Syne," boys and girls will embrace and the new century will be upon us.

It will be the year 2000. Or, if you prefer twenty-hundred. But what shall we call it? Two-triple-oh, perhaps.

A baby born tonight could not be president of the United States in the year 2000. He would have not yet attained the constitutional age of thirty-five years.

Statistics indicate that about three-fourths of the people listening to me at this moment will live to see that year, which is no further in the future than the election of Franklin Roosevelt is in the past.

What do we know about year 2000? Well, ecologists tell us that in that year we will have run very nearly out of food, that half the world's population will be on a starvation diet. We can project the so-called electronic revolution and predict that the number of workers engaged in actual production will drop to only 18 percent of the workforce. At the same time, the number of people in all the various service occupations will almost double.

Experts tell us that we will cluster more than ever into cities, drive electrically powered cars, work less, and retire earlier. But what about these things? What will they mean to you and me, to the average worker and to his family?

See also:
Closer Than We Think! Monoline Express (1961)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 1 (1970)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 2 (1970)
The Population Bomb: Scenario 3 (1970)

Closer Than We Think! Fish Bowl Swimming Pool (1958)

More often than not, Arthur Radebaugh's brilliant series Closer Than We Think! makes practical sense. However, this image which ran in the July 13, 1958 Chicago Tribune, threw me for a loop (cringe-inducing pun intended).


Today's spectators can see beneath the surface of a swimming pool only through windows or portholes below the water line. But tomorrow's vacationers will be able to do far better. Pools in transparent structures above the ground will enable observers to relax alongside and have the fun watching underwater aquatic frolicking at the same time.

This in-the-air pool for swimming in the future is shaped like a cocktail glass or the bottom half of a fish bowl. It is reached by a circular ramp leading to platforms and diving boards - a highly decorative addition to the grounds of tomorrow's pleasure resorts.

See also:
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Closer Than We Think! Monoline Express
Closer Than We Think! Lunar Mailbag (1960)
Closer Than We Think! Polar City (1959)

The Future of Leisure That Never Arrived (New York Times, 2007)

In yesterday's article by Hal R. Varian, (a professor of business, economics, and information at UC-Berkeley), we see that over the last 100 years, society has been convinced technological and social progress would bring about vast amounts of leisure time.

"When you account for the much longer time in school, the more or less constant amount of time spent on housework, and make a few other adjustments, hours spent on purely enjoyable activities haven’t changed that much in the last century. Keynes may have been right that future generations will have a lot of time on their hands, but I wouldn’t bet on that happening anytime soon."

See also:
What to do with all this leisure time? (1966) 22 Feb 2007

What to do with all this leisure time? (1966)

"By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy. With Government benefits, even nonworking families will have, by one estimate, an annual income of $30,000-$40,000 (in 1966 dollars). How to use leisure meaningfully will be a major problem, and Herman Kahn foresees a pleasure-oriented society full of 'wholesome degeneracy.'"

The entire article from the February 25, 1966 issue of TIME can be read here.

For the record, $40,000 in 1966 dollars is the equivalent of just under $250,000 in 2007 dollars, according to the Inflation Calculator.