General Sports Information
The Big Three and combat sports rule the nets in the UCAS, CAS, and CFS. Other sports are bigger overseas, and even in other parts of the Americas.
Soccer remains the most popular sport worldwide, though Urban Brawl is coming up fast as number two. The quadrennial World Cup of soccer is still the most widely watched sporting event on the planet. The 2056 World Cup is scheduled for Aztec Stadium in Tenochtitlan, and Aztechnology is rumored to be spending heavy cred to build a world-beating team for the event. The big news in world soccer is the entry of Amazonia into international competition with a team that is almost completely metahuman. And against every anti-metahuman's hopes and expectations, the Amazonian team Is making impressive progress in the world standings.
Some of the NAN countries have adopted lacrosse, touting it as a traditionally Native American game. And in keeping with the NAN's mixed feelings about cyber, it is no surprise that their lacrosse players are all natural. The more conservative tribal factions have enough clout to keep even physical adepts from playing, claiming it "profanes their gift" to use it that way. One former NAN state has resurrected a more sinister athletic tradition.
Magic in Sports
Open use of magic in pro sports is illegal across the board. Spells, aid from spirits, and any other magical assistance are all
banned. The biggest question from the beginning was the physical adept. When physical adepts were officially identified as a legit magical manifestation by the American Association for the Advancement of Thaumaturgy, back in the early thirties, a lot of drek started flying. Seems a couple of team owners with a bug in their headware about spook stuff brought in a "witch smeller," an adept who specializes in spotting magical energy on the astral, and ran their players past her. The adept ID'd a half dozen top players who were physads. Most of them didn't know they were adepts, though Warren Lee, star center for the Charlotte Hornets, was from an old Ozark hill family and always made a big deal out of wearing his gitchee bags and lucky pieces off the court. Some writers figure he may have been an initiate.
This started a rash of court suits, hearings, and protests. Things dragged on until 2042, when the pro sports commissioners chartered a joint committee, which handed down a decision in 2045 that everyone embraced to their bosoms, because they were totally sick of the whole mess.
Anyone claiming to be a physical adept cannot be fired or cut for that reason, but he also cannot have any cyber. If a physad gets modified at all, he loses his special standing. This ruling left things pretty much up to the front office for each team. They could always find some reason to drop a player besides his magical ability, and late bloomers who got a teeny mod put in before they knew they were adept are at the mercy of the management. Where the fans accept magic, an adept or two usually appears on the local rosters. Most places, it's cyberware all the way.
We already mentioned Harry Bartiett, L.A.'s hotshot ork pitcher. He was a rarity, already a popular player when he grew tusks. Baseball is pretty conservative about metas in general, and some teams make a big noise about the sport being for "real" humans. There's maybe half a dozen metahumans in the North American League, not counting the Portland Lords, of course.
The heavier bones and musculature of orks and trolls is wizbang for football. And a remarkable number of elves are active in pro basketball. Approximately twenty-four players in the NAB A are elven, and seventy-eight pro football players are ork or troll. The shadowtalk claims there is a "gentlemen's agreement" among the team owners to keep a lid on metahuman recruitment, and maybe it's true, 'cause there should be lots more of them out there.
Women in Sports
Cyberware renders sex-based differences in strength and speed irrelevant. Skill is what matters, skill and guts. Given cyber, a top-notch female pitcher can strike out a batter as easily as an equally skilled male. Even in football, a woman with the right implants has no trouble slamming it out with male opponents.
But tradition dies hard, and a lot of recruiting depends on uncybered performance in collegiate and amateur leagues, which means women going after careers in pro sports still face major physical disadvantages. The first woman to capture a pro baseball contract was Judy Hofsted, in 2038, with the Detroit Tigers. She was cybered already, as a test subject for Anderson Bionics. Her performance was impressive enough to prompt the more adventurous teams to scout other top female athletes.
Only about two dozen women are on pro teams today in the Big Three. Newer sports, especially the combat sports, boast
a larger percentage.
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