Which Sports Will Survive?

By Daniel Okrent

--BASEBALL The major league version will be wildly popular but just in New York City, Los Angeles, Houston and Phoenix, Ariz. The rest of the teams will have folded long before the end of the century, and only these four megalopolises will have the population base, and thus the cash, to support utility infielders making $100 million a year. The minor leagues will flourish too, in such cities as Toronto and Seattle, where ancient ballparks like the Skydome and Safeco Field will allow fans to remember simpler times, when the game was pure and hitters actually had to run the bases, back before the advent of designated feet.

--FOOTBALL Doomed. By mid-century, selective breeding will have produced 450-lb. linebackers who can run the 40 in 3.5. When they collide with 420-lb. running backs who can do it in 3.3, the resulting explosions will be so gruesome that even the guy with the JOHN 3:16 sign will stop attending games.

--BASKETBALL Utterly internationalized. The Lagos Lakers, with their 7-ft. 6-in. Nigerian point guards, will dominate.

--BOXING Following the retirement of Don King, the sweet science will enjoy a soul-stirring comeback, a Periclean Age of noble warriors who fight monthly, only against worthy opponents and always on free television. At weigh-ins, the combatants salute each other by reciting, from memory, quatrains about sportsmanship by Grantland Rice.

--THE OLYMPICS Replaced by the AOL-Time Warner-Citibank-Wal-Mart-People's Republic of China Inc. Goodwill Games.

--By Daniel Okrent