Sport, spectators and big events

Television actually gives you the better view: close-ups, replays, expert commentary. What it can't give you is the feeling of being one voice among forty thousand. In a stadium you groan and leap up at the same instant as strangers, and that shared emotion is the thing people are really paying for; the match is almost secondary. There's also a kind of bragging right in being able to say you were there when it happened. On hosting international events, I'm more sceptical than most. Governments promise tourism, jobs and national pride, and the pride is real enough: a home crowd behind its team can lift the mood of a whole country for weeks. But the financial case is often weak. Several host cities have been left with enormous stadiums that stand empty and debts that take decades to clear. I'd say hosting makes sense only when a country can reuse existing venues, or when the new roads and rail lines were needed anyway. As for the future, I expect the experience at home to get much closer to the real thing. Viewers will probably choose their own camera angle, see a player's speed on screen in real time, or watch through a headset from a virtual seat on the halfway line. Even so, I don't think ticket sales will collapse, because no headset can reproduce the roar when your side scores.