Will Ronaldo be Replaced by a Robot? (Not Haaland) 🤖
Plus a politician tries to pass a law stopping relegation and new calls for the Super League.
Welcome to Athletic Interest.
Many of you will probably remember this Nike advert from the 2014 World Cup:
For those of you who missed it, and are stuck with a Tik Tok level attention span, the advert shows a dystopian future where robots replace human footballers and drain the sport of any feeling or passion…
These days we call it the Antonio Conte method.
The fear that robots, and perhaps more specifically Artificial Intelligence, will take over key aspects of society and resign us, humans, to the trash heap of history is nothing new.
Luckily, we have Dwight Schrute - Assistant to the Regional Manager - on our side.
While it may seem that we have the upper hand over metal kind - for now - there are those within the robotic community that believes football is a sport ripe for domination.
In fact, researchers think they can create a team of robot players capable of defeating the greatest human footballers by 2050.
This got us thinking, are robot footballers really that big of a possibility? And could they actually take over?
Some would argue that it’s already too late:
Before everyone loses their sh*t and signs a petition to have Haaland removed from football…
We have to remember that Haaland is not a real robot…Cyborg maybe…but not a metal man with an artificial brain.
Not that such things don’t exist. There is even a Robo World Cup that takes place each year, showcasing cutting-edge robotic footballers.
As for the prospect of these machines replacing our very best humans…it doesn’t look like we have much to worry about.
Saying that, our future robot overlords do appear to have mastered one of the finer arts of modern football…
Neymar must be shaking in his Puma boots right now!
All joking aside, this was the biggest problem we found when researching robot footballers. The technology for creating a dynamic moving machine that can handle complex terrains simply isn’t there…yet
But companies are making huge strides (literally) at creating dynamic fast moving robots, that could arguably be used to play a game of football.
This isn’t a reference to Elon Musk’s latest PR stunt, which he clearly made out of an old air conditioning unit and a car battery.
Other companies, like Boston Dynamics, have spent years tweaking and perfecting the art of robotics and their results are scary.
So is that it? Is it simply a matter of time before a Robotic Ronaldo will be laughing at YouTube compilations of puny humans failing at football?
And what about the here and now? Robotics are already taking over the training and development of athletes.
Just watch this clip of Real Madrid’s new training equipment, spookily narrated by an actual robot.
How afraid should we be at the prospect of technology invading the sports we love, and what will the consequences be, not only for our society but also for our very development as a living breathing human species?
Watch on to find out more:
🍎 Sports Business Bites
🇦🇷 What would you do to help your favourite football team succeed? Some of us travel the world - in our lucky underwear - in the hope that our support can make a difference. Others say prayers or offer gifts to the gods.
This politician in Argentina took things a step further. Marcelo Casaretto, the National Deputy for Entre Rios, decided to propose a law in the Argentinian parliament that would save his local club from relegation.
Patronato football club are currently facing the prospect of being relegated from Argentina’s Primera Division because of a unique rule introduced in response to the pandemic.
Because the last two seasons were either disrupted or canceled, the league decided that relegation would be determined based on an average of the clubs’ points haul across the past three seasons.
While Patronato currently sit in position 13 out of 28, their bad performances in the two seasons before the pandemic mean they are actually second from the bottom and face imminent relegation.
Casaretto’s proposal is to remove the three-season cumulative points total and scrap relegation entirely for the 2022 season. This would obviously save his beloved team from the dreaded drop…and probably win him a few votes in his local area.
It is unclear at this time if the vote was successful.
🤧 Talking of audacious attempts to change football forever…Florentino Perez is back in the news. The Real Madrid president is still pushing for his Super League idea, which would position Europe’s biggest teams in a closed league thus ensuring that they always play each other and make even more money from broadcasting and sponsorship.
“Our beloved sport is sick,” explained Perez to Madrid’s general assembly. “Especially in Europe and of course in Spain, football is losing its position as the world’s leading sport.”
Perez is concerned that football is failing to engage with fans and could lose out if changes are not quickly made. “The most worrying fact is that young people are becoming less and less interested in football. The current competitions, as they are designed today, do not attract spectators’ interest, except in the final stages,” he explained at the assembly
Perez may even point to the NFL as a shining example of how a sport can change for the better (or at least more lucrative.) The NFL is already set up so that top teams regularly meet during the normal season and new target groups are reached through live games in London, Mexico City, and Munich.
That might explain why the Champions League is already considering moving the location of the final to the outside of Europe.
📈 Trading platform Plus 500 has just announced a global sponsorship deal with NBA side Chicago Bulls.
As of this season, the company’s logo will feature on the front of the Bulls’ warmup shooting shirts and jackets.
This deal should considerably increase the brand’s exposure in the US. market, and appears to follow an interesting sports marketing strategy.
Plus 500 was founded in 2008 in London and started to expand across Europe. One of the biggest tools that the company used to ensure maximum exposure was to become the shirt sponsor of prominent LaLiga side Atletico Madrid. This was a massive deal at the time (€17M per season) and was one of the first times that a relatively unknown Fintech company became the biggest sponsor of one of Europe’s major sports teams.
Clearly, the move paid off, with Plus 500 now repeating the strategy with one of America’s biggest teams.
Repeated success could encourage more companies to use shirt sponsorships to quickly expand awareness in markets that they want to enter.
🤖 We finish this week’s newsletter with an interesting proposal from Twitter:
Haaland and the Norweigan national team were unable to qualify for the World Cup, but with Haaland being one of the most talked about footballers at the moment, it would make sense for FIFA to want him to make some sort of appearance.