Voetbal21.nl (Soccer21; Dutch) claims to be the first soccer community which focuses on all 1 million amateur soccer players in the Netherlands. The site offers space for photos, videos, statistics and reports of all competitions from the 5500 different competitions. The site is partially a social network within which each soccer player can make their own profile and add friends. Site users can have multiple roles: player, team coach, club official or supporter. Each role has its own possibilities. There are also pages by team, club and competition. Voetbal21.nl has all the information on clubs, competitions and matches on the website. The data comes from public sources.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In the creation of sport coaching brands we see at the end of the first decade of this century that new brands especially collect information for us: put everything together. Brands that also know everything about us, and our friends, can optimize the social element of our sport. In a next step this type of brand will learn everything about our performances and or social role in groups (what is our social, informal role in the team). Based on that they can coach us with our qualities in mind. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Tribal

Nike knows how to stimulate runners to ever higher performances. Nike sends a spoken congratulations though Lance Armstrong's ear plugs if you've run your personal record and plays a personally chosen 'power song' when your energy is flagging. Runners can also encourage each other with rewards, for example emails which you can only open after a specific performance. Furthermore competitions held in different places at the same time are connected to one another.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Especially the sports sector shows how brands can encourage people to reach higher levels through the use of technology. Mutual battles, motivating examples, the feeling of wanting to be part of something, emotional sounds, rational numbers that stimulate other parts of the brain: all possibilities are used. Yet it doesn’t end here: the measuring of one’s physical and mental condition; do we have the right nutrients?; are we concentrating enough or thinking of other things?; Are we moving correctly?; If not, how should we move?; And what’s possible, given the circumstances? Eventually a personal sports brand will be even better than a human counterpart, but that’ll take a few decades yet.

And a real coach doesn’t choose a specific kind of brand of shoe, but the shoe that lets you perform. This is how Nike can outgrow its status as a shoe producer and earn money by coaching runners. This direction seems to get ever clearer.

Related trends

• More involved

The International Olympic Comitee, the IOC, will broadcast its own images of the Olympics in Beijing via YouTube. In countries where the television rights haven't been sold and in countries where those rights haven't been sold exclusively, the IOC will takeover the role of broadcaster. The games' organization won't have to make deals with television broadcasting companies because it'll place the images directly on the internet. No full sports competitions will be offered, but solely summaries and highlights. Inhabitants of 77 countries (such as Afghanistan and Ethiopia, but also Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Thailand) will profit from this move.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And so the media landscape is slowly taking shape. All brands are building brand worlds where they have high quality interaction, dialogue, with the consumer. The time of programming the consumer’s television-evening is slowly ending. Currently for 77 countries only, but soon for all of them. We’ll start paying the IOC for its content—that’s also part of the development—but will be given an experience we’ll never forget in return, it’ll put every previous television broadcast to shame. It’ll become the trick to select the right experiences and for that home entertainment coaching brands will be at our side. This is how everything correlates with one another, this is how a wholly different world is created, one in which the consumer is central.

Related trends

• Brand worlds

Klik je Fit (Dutch) provides fitnessmusic with sport instructions for your iPod. There are mp3s for Stepper, Fitness Ball, Ab King Pro, Fitness Mat and Leg Magic. The files cost €4,99 each.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will start to function more and more as a personal coach. More and more initiatives in this area will be founded. What we’re seeing today is child’s play compared to what will happen. Eventually it’s about getting the best out of ourselves, and then this service will become very personal.

Through Jogging Over A Distance joggers now can continuously stay connected. In this video two joggers who say goodbye and continue each on their own route. Through the headset they can keep talking to each other, whereby they hear the other person's voice from ahead or from behind, wherever the jogging partner is.

We thus connect the whole world. People, animals, plants, objects, means of transportation: everything is mapped. And we can contact them, wherever we are, whenever we want. In this environment coaching brands will bloom.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

This Dansmat.info dance mat has you stand on 4 arrows: up, down, left and right. The mat is connected to the PC and on the screen you see arrows, appearing to the rhythm of the music. The purpose is to tap the right arrow at the right moment. If you do it right, you can get points and choose harder songs (dm). We here see the experience economy take shape: an economy in which money is made by giving us personal experiences at our own place. With that a dance coach evolves, a form of a personal sports brand, a brand that teaches you how to dance (although still very simple, but it is a beginning). And finally this is just the media evolution in which all we do (walk, cry, jump, talk, turn, type) is used by brands on the other side of the medium, and through which they can shape the dialogue with us. We will see lots of developments here.

The WII Balance Board is a sort scale that can accurately determine where you put pressure on it. Apart from all kinds of fitness exercises, the Board also makes it possible to train your balance (fc).

Promoting balance in mind and body is not a short contemporary hype, not a trend like 'we are going to play games again', but a very long term trend. This trend however is only beginning, and will only further develop after the world economy has come to balance, we can hardly speak of low wage countries, and the automizing and robotizing trends have allowed us to work less. We then will finally have the time to structurally work on ourselves. We will then be able to do things we now consider 'inexplicable', as 'magic', or supra natural. It will take some time, I am talking about 2050, but the first products to help us in this are now introduced. And these are just brands again.

Through the special miCoach phone (a product of Adidas and Samsung) the runner gets a personal assistant while running. A coach who knows what you want, and who helps you to get there. The coach can determine your fitness in the first run, help you define your goals, and make a plan to get there. Top trainers are supporting the coach. Besides music during your run, you get spoken instructions, and your heart rate and running pace are monitored (mb, Dutch).

We more and more surround ourselves with technique, offered by brands. Soon miCoach will also measure what music leads to what changes in achievements for us. And miCoach will tell us how to run, so that we don't have to think about it, and will have us take a different route if something is going on on our usual route (and we don't want to run there). And miCoach will have us compete with others. Real time, or as a benchmark. But even here it doesn't stop. Thanks to all kinds of mental techniques we will be capable of even better achievements. Practice for that starts at home. And thanks to all kinds of sensors, miCoach will exactly know how we move, and how this influences our performance. There miCoach will give tips as well. And on and on. This will not stop.

E-Fitzone is a fitness center completely focused on interactive training. Apart from well-know movement games like the Nintendo Wii and Sony's EyeToy Kinetic there are lots of other games to play. This development perfectly fits in this era. We will be more and more challenged on an individual level. We will be able to learn certain sports without having been in the real environment. We will be personally coached without having a personal coach. We will play with other people from all over the world, form virtual teams, and compete against others. Against real or virtual people. Today's obesity, caused by too much media usage, will get a whole new perspective in tomorrow's world. By offering a series of experiences we can transform to be real top athletes in a certain field in the course of years. Or develop certain physical skills we would normally not be able to find a teacher for. With that, the experience economy in the long term will change into the transformation economy. It still has a long way to go but this is a nice start.

Related trends

• Experiences

Through Virtufit athletes can follow instructions at home for 2 euros per lesson (via ld, Dutch). Working out at home is the future in some way. First the screens will get much bigger, we will get light and wind effects, and a brand agent will react to your movements on behalf of the sports program, and then motivate you to do better. Better than last time you did it: you will get your own last performance projected, or even your friends. Earlier or later the virtual world will get the best out of the physical human being. This however is only a very small start.

The Dutch Fietsersbond (cyclists' organization) makes it possible to plan routes through its bike route planner (ld, Dutch). In sports, in transport, in entertainment: brands will support us in all kinds of ways. We don't have to think ourselves any more, we only have to be. With brands as our coaches.

A new device featuring GPS, made by Satski, follows your routes at the ski slopes, guards the trip you planned upfront, and gives information about the restaurants on the way. You can also see how many miles you have traveled, what top speed you reached, and you can print the road you have traveled. You can save this, and compare it with other athletes (vo, Dutch). Thus sport coaching brands slowly evolve. Now connected to a device, in the future also available through all kinds of screens, like our mobile phones among others. Now it measures the results after the achievement has been made, in the future it will give you real time tips when you're going down the slopes: bend your knees a little bit more, now 'carve', put your hand on your side, etc. Our ski coach then always accompanies us.

Mijnsportwereld.nl is a new Dutch network site for active athletes. Apart from central and user-generated sport news like game reports, pictures and videos. it is possible to follow leagues and (in the long run) even start a new league. Besides, members can make their own profile, chat, and apart from friends also add team members and club members. After that, tools will follow for team management, schedules for the bar, and washing the uniforms (mf, Dutch). Thus sport coaching brands slowly develop. First by taking care of many practical issues, but later this type of brands will become our ultimate personal coach by guiding us to top achievements on an individual level. This is only the beginning.

Through Training with the Stars every (Dutch) runner, biker, or fitness enthusiast can now get their own personal coach on their MP3 player. The training is accompanied by encouragements and tips from Dutch top athletes Mascha Dolman, Leontien van Moorsel and Gianni Romme, as well as music keeping up the pace. Athletes can keep their log through the site. After registration they can directly download their first MP3 (ts). Thus new brands show how they take on the role of personal coach. In the future also for purchase advice for products, for special training weeks, or for nutritional advice. This way personal sports brands slowly develop.

The Australian University of Melbourne has developed a prototype under the name 'Jogging over Distance', in which two people who jog separately can yet hear each other at the distance they would be if they were jogging together. 3D audio simulation is used to make it seem like the slower jogger is really behind you, or the quicker jogger is in front of you. This could be very stimulating (tx). We imitate the physical world as good as we can so that we can experience anything we like at any place on earth. Alone, or with other people. This is an example of things really going in that direction.