Olympic Ideals....

Here's where I get to do a plug for Plato, albeit a tenuous link. Plato said (I'm paraphrasing, so don't haul me over the coals if I'm not verbatim) that all things in the real world are merely imperfect reflections of the ideal form in the mind. An idea I have had for a long, long time is that of online sports participation. The 'taking part' is already happening and has been for a long time (e.g. Starcraft etc) but what I'm talking about is watching, and it's starting to happen.
The prime example to use to illustrate the point is online football where 2 people play each other over the net and the rating of the winner increases, the loser decreases. There are probably leagues too! The question is when people will actually start watching these games on a large scale, kids already prefer playing the video version to watching the real thing, and there's already live broadcasts of video game matches in Korea.
The key is to creating some game superstars, which is done by having a prize tournament and getting some personalities to take part. The games also need to be watchable, but we already have some ideas in those areas from the TV guys.
Perhaps the way to do it initially is to have the watching happen over the internet in the same way you play the game, perhaps even have some form of audience participation, equivalent to the cheering of the crowd in a real event. Perhaps something that directly influences play in a minor way.
It's all part of communities on the web, and the social interaction that we all crave. We all want to be part of something larger, and the traditional sporting institutions are becoming stale and outmoded.