What we love about esport and digital games are the limitless possibilities, and their self-vetting, youth-driven communities that progress the movement and stretch barriers. They emerge without governing authorities and other types of gate-keeping adults, as with skateboarding in the 1970s and 80s.
We love that esport can connect players on the same team from anywhere, instantly. Esport makes it possible for youth to relate to each other across thousands of kilometers and political boundaries, live, if not in person.
We love the way the digital realm can so easily gamify even the mundane, just for fun. It can be used to educate and challenge you wherever you are and connect and form communities over it. If you geek-out on national flags or the Age of Exploration or World War II battle re-creations, you can find games and even international competitions, and find others who love playing.
The energy of the esport movement is, in a positive sense, still the ‘wild west.’ That disruptive ‘something’ is what makes it so appealing. Esport and digital games behave like a universe in expansion. If sustainable governing structures are inevitable for esports, we should always admire most its youthful spontaneity and grassroots origins.
What makes physical sport so valuable is that, in a digital age, it helps ground us as physical, organic specimens. It forces us to interact in the flesh. We value the unexpected and the uncertainty of outcomes in physical sport by way of physical means: the rewards of physical training, weaknesses, injury, imperfections, and physical and mental heroics. There are life lessons learned from the immediate feedback from competitors and officiators that you cannot get from anonymity behind a screen.
With physical sport, there are signs that something happened in a physical world, in an actual place. When a contest ends, nothing is ever really wiped clean. There’s evidence that something happened there. Spit on the floor. A cut on your eye, maybe a scar. There’s sweat in your clothes. The turf is torn up by the cleats. There’s a kid with a ball that he caught off a batter’s home run. There’s a javelin, shoes, jerseys. The physical relics that can hold the moment in time. If you ever have a chance to visit a sport Hall of Fame in your country or the IOC Olympic Museum, look at what is cherished as the physical remnants of competition in a world that does not set itself back to ‘zero’ when the game ends. We value that shred of permanence of physical sport – something indelible.
What makes phygital sport so exciting is that it is the most natural expression of how we play and recreate today. It combines both digital and physical attributes to honor them in the same contest. Phygital sport calls to all people who engage in either digital or physical contests who want to extend themselves across that divide to the other side. Within a match, phygital sport has two arcs of battle, each requiring completely different skills sets. This makes for a uniquely dramatic experience – whether competitors are evenly matched across both digital and physical stages or alternately lopsided in talent. That dynamic means a gamer and an athlete each have to grow toward the other.
The ancient Olympic Games drew heavily on the skills of the battlefield (running, javelin, wrestling, even a race in armor) and were protected by a sacred truce that guaranteed safe passage to all who traveled to compete. The Games mirrored what the Greeks were already training for. They met them where they were. Why should sport today be any different?
Phygital sport meets humanity where they live today. It honors digital literacy and physical resilience; digital tactical intelligence, and discipline over body and mind; the use of tools and resources both virtual and real. Digital games projecting their avatars’ character statistics to mimic the ebb and flow of physical health. Real-life joggers ‘capturing’ real estate on a game app by running a perimeter. Stationary cyclists racing on virtual courses. Kids hunting Pokémon on city streets. Whether you are a world-class or weekend athlete benefitting from elaborate data and biofeedback devices, the physical champion is already half digital. Every day and all day long, we, and especially youth, oscillate between digital and physical realms.
The concept of phygital sport is a predictable consequence of humans in balance with the world we are in. Through digital games, physical sport gains a pathway to a generation it is losing. While physical sport holds the payoff of training your body, showing up in person, and competing face to face with real teammates and officials. The Games of the Future is an open-minded curation of this forward thinking, presented as a grand, in-person festival of competition.
Consider this evidence. Globally, the World Health Organization reports that about 81% of adolescents don’t get the recommended hour of daily physical activity, with girls lagging further behind boys, and that figure has barely moved in well over a decade. In the United States, the CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that roughly 40% of high school students felt persistent sadness or hopelessness, and about one in five seriously considered suicide. Worldwide, suicide is the third leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 29. Yet the same CDC research points to what protects young people: regular physical activity, playing on a sports team, and feeling connected to their school community. Each was linked to better mental health. And the digital realm isn’t the villain. An Oxford study using actual play-time data found a small positive link between gaming and wellbeing, especially when players felt competence and connection. If youth find joy and community in the digital realm, but atrophy in body and in face-to-face interaction and relationships; if youth don’t see a place for themselves in traditional physical sports, how do we square this?
Phygital sport is an answer to this very real tension.
Picture a fifteen-year-old who has never made a school team but is ranked in her country at a football video game. Phygital sport doesn’t ask her to abandon what she loves. It invites her to carry it onto a real pitch, to train her legs and lungs because her digital skill alone won’t win the match, and to stand shoulder to shoulder with teammates she has met in person. And picture the experienced athlete beside her, who must now sharpen a different kind of intelligence on screen. Each brings the other something. Neither can win alone.
Phygital International is offering a way forward. And we are not alone in seeing its potential. The growing interest from countries on all 5 continents in hosting the Games of the Future is a powerful indication that this vision is resonating well beyond the communities that first gave it life. As we look towards the 2027–2030 editions, we see an exciting horizon of potential host cities, each bringing its own culture, sporting heritage, young people and ambitions to the movement. The enthusiasm of prospective host cities tells me that this future is already taking shape. And I believe we are only beginning to see what it can become.
The future of sport won’t be built by choosing between the digital and physical worlds. It will be built by recognising what each has to offer, and by creating places where both can thrive. Digital play leaves a record and friends across the world. Physical sport leaves stronger muscles, grass stains and high fives. Phygital sport leaves both, and something more: a young person who crossed from one world into the other and found they belonged in each.
Dan Merkley, Phygital International CEO
