"Somewhere in the last three years, we’ve crossed the transom from being a sports industry to being a media industry"

As part of their “Sports Visionaries” series, the New York Times’ Ken Belson talked to sports psychologist Rich Luker about the world of sports and his polling company that works with “professional sports leagues and teams.”

He’s not wild about what he’s seeing in sports as leagues, teams and individuals soak up the numbers while distancing themselves from the core tenets of their “product”.

First off, this…

I do all I can to encourage sports to continue to be sports in the same way classic rock is classic rock. It was something that was part of the definition of the times, and it stood the test of time regardless of how things have changed. Sports in America, particularly the traditional sports, should be the same. Be the classic sports and provide the social context that is being lost on the internet.

Yeah, but Jack Nicklaus didn’t live under par dude! Sorry, go on to the really good stuff that may ring a bell, or not…

The people who run the sports are business people. They love their sports. But they are looking at what’s going on and see people developing new technologies that surpassed things in their own sports, so the logical temptation is instead of trying to beat them to join them.

If they dedicated 5 percent of their time, energy, effort and resources to the heart of their games, as well as doing the technology, they’d be just fine. My fear is that somewhere in the last three years, we’ve crossed the transom from being a sports industry to being a media industry. They are focusing more on the technology and the media than the sport itself.

But chicks dig the long ball, so we’re told without any actual spike in audience numbers to prove it.

What obstacles do you face in your field?

It’s something every social scientist faces. Some people are in research in sports who are only collecting behaviors and they do that using machines — Nielsen boxes and clicks on web pages and so on. There’s no interaction with human beings, they’re only collecting outcomes without knowing why. The biggest obstacle we face is that the research I do has always been about why you do what you do, it’s never been just what you do. It’s about understanding the motivations and your fulfillment and what detracts from your fulfillment.

If only Dr. Luker could get his hands on golf executives…