Which of the various sports of today do you think are still being played, whether professionally or recreationally, in the future that Trek gives us? We know that Sisko has a keen interest in baseball but I can't recall if pro baseball is referred to solely in historic terms, or if it's mentioned as still running into the 24th century. Furthermore, I'd love to know if the World Cup, Wimbledon finals, the NBA/NFL/NHL etc are still being contested in the world of Trek or if they're discontinued at some point in our fictional future, and if so, for what reasons. What do you think?
The Sisko baseball episodes were awful. We know there’s rick climbing (if that’s a sport). I like to think there’s still football/soccer. The Olympics or some variation thereof are probably still around.
Tennis has been played by hand since the 12th century and with rackets since the 16th century...maybe it’ll be played with a hover-ball in the 24th. Janeway competed in tennis as a teen in VOY executive producer Jeri Taylor’s once “semi-canon” biographical novel Mosaic.
It was established that professional baseball was largely extinct by the 24th century. Sisko's passion for an archaic, all-but-forgotten pastime was treated as a personal eccentricity. Kind of like modern-day folks who are into medieval ballads or jousting or whatever. Baseball has become a historical curiosity, despite Sisko's best efforts to keep the flame alive.
Worf attended a bat'lith (sp?) competition, Kirk spoke of Klingons maintaining a dueling tradition. Charlie X showed Kirk teaching Charlie beginning lessons in martial arts. It would be easy to imagine Kirk engaging in fighting as a sport. Picard fences, as does Sulu as one of his ever changing hobbies.
Baseball is alive and well on Cestus III at least. I wonder if colonial sports are a Minor League type of thing, or something completely off the professional radars? One of Julian Bashir's career options was tennis. We don't know how that would work in a moneyless or at least salaryless society, but the sport clearly carried some prestige, perhaps akin to today's. It takes money to turn sports into entertainment today. Perhaps this bit goes away in the future, actually facilitating rather than killing sports-based entertainment? It's just that there would be so many sports to choose from that even soccer might be a marginal thing, with barely fifty billion followers. (Or, in a society without labor or wages, with barely fifty billion practitioners.) Timo Saloniemi
If Baseball had become a very niche activity I would expect other team sports like American Football, Hockey and Basketball would have as well. At least in the forms we know them today. If tennis is around, I would expect golf is as well.
Football, The World Cup, got a mention in Enterprise when Archer was trying to break the ice with Reed over breakfast
Track and field are apparently still around, as Picard spoke of having competed in the Academy marathon. He also fenced -- another sport.
Don't forget Anbo-Jyutsu, branded by Riker's dad as "the ultimate evolution of martial arts," and also a way for parents & children to settle scores with one another.
Not real sport, but imagine pro wresting in the future. A meek everyday human versus a gigantic Nausican, and the storyline is that the Vulcan champion was critically injured in his last match but his Katra now resides in the meek human who is defending the title on his behalf.