I have to admit that I’m pretty bored by much of professional sport. It’s really difficult to identify in any way with the bronzed international athletes who play primarily for cash, rather than the honour of any particular team or nation.
True supporters, however, always like to believe that they can influence the outcome of eg a game of football by virtue of their fanatical exhortation. Today’s invention attempts to give them some real control over the outcome of their favourite game.
Imagine an international match where microphones are placed around the pitch. If your team has the ball, as a supporter you cheer and scream your heart out. This noise would be captured by the microphones and used to widen both goalmouths using uprights driven along a track by some accurately controlled electric motors. Widening both goals removes the need to identify who is in possession (only one goal can be under attack at a time). Naturally, if your side is dispossessed, the test would be to be as quiet as possible (a valuable education in itself for the average football supporter).
This would allow much greater participation and even more fanaticism by the crowd (who would probably have to be searched, on entry to the ground, for any noise generating equipment -I’m sure FIFA could come up with some rules in less than a decade or so). This scheme might be adapted to allow input from a global, online audience. This could take the form of financial pledges made to charity, rather than cheering volume.
