Will Rising Temperatures Change Sport
Photo by Alessio Patron on Unsplash
When you think of the biggest challenges to global sports over the coming decades, things like media fragmentation or financing sources are often top of the list. But there’s another problem quietly disrupting events, athlete performance, even grassroots participation: the growing risk of extreme heat.
From melting asphalt on cycle routes, through to players suffering heat exhaustion, heatwaves are not an inconvenience. No, they represent a significant health challenge and major operational cost to the governing bodies of sport.
Clearly sport will continue to thrive, but measures to build resilience, to prepare for increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves, are key. Here I’ll cover the disruptions faced and measures emerging to counter them. But first off, what are the basics around heatwave projections and what impacts do they have to those competing.
Heatwave Basics: Where Are We Heading
The scientific reality for us all, including sports events, is straightforward: heatwaves are becoming more frequent, longer and more intense. The cause, a changing climate.
In top-line numbers, global temperatures have risen over 1°C since 1850, now roughly at the 1.5°C mark. This will head towards 2°C, and very likely beyond (based on current global action). This doesn’t sound like much to many, but for heat, the real concern is in the extremes that occur.
Take the UK for example, the country’s 10 hottest years on record have all come since 2002, whilst heatwaves are now 30x more likely. A competition like the Wimbledon tennis tournament, where players could previously expected temperatures in the mid-to-high 20s, now prepares for temperature in the 30s. This year’s competition peak climbed past 35°C.
Consequently for sport, extreme heat concerns are no longer confined to small group of regions. Summer events where safe temperatures could previously be relied upon face the growing risk of crossing heat safety thresholds. Anyone out running or playing sport in the summer months will know how quickly a few extra degrees of heat can drain you! When you’re pushing yourself to the limit, as athletes do, that draining effect of heat can become a real danger.
Athlete Physiology & Safety
Human physiology hits biological limits when exercising under heat stress. Consequently, higher ambient temperatures spike the risk of medical emergencies, ranging from heat cramps and exhaustion, through to life threatening exertional heat stroke (sometimes collectively known as Exertional Heat Illness, or EHI for short).
These medical reactions show early through performance degradation. Spiking body temperatures will impair cognitive performance and motor skills, reduce endurance capacity and ultimately reduce your time to reaching complete exhaustion. Failure to act as these signs emerge can lead to severe, potentially life threatening, medical consequences.
The Disruptions Emerging
Rising temperatures, and the resulting physiological effects, ripple through every layer of sports, from mega events, down to youth leagues:
Event Cancellations & Financial Risk: Heat spikes can result in delays, last minute schedule changes and speciation restrictions. This in turn can harm ticket sales return and concession sales. Insurance premiums also rise - an under-reported but notable issue.
Strains on Infrastructure: Asphalt not suited to extreme heat can be prone to melting (not great for a cycle course!), grass pitches become increasingly difficult to maintain for play, whilst the cost of air-conditioning inside venues can rise rapidly. Even just making sure the crowd stays hydrated can be a challenge.
Public & Youth Participation: Participants at this level may often be more vulnerable to health impacts, with physical resilience to the strains of heat lower. School and public sports events are of course easier to cancel or reschedule without financial implications, and more frequently are. Whilst good from a safety perspective, the disruption harms long term engagement and development pipelines for the professional ranks.
Building Resilience: The Sports Reacting to Heatwaves
Many sports at the professional level are beginning to introduce controls as the impacts of heatwaves become more notable and concern for athlete safety grows. Let’s take a look at some examples:
Tennis: The Australian Open’s Heat Stress Scale
Organisers of the Australian Open overhauled their approach to heatwaves in 2019, implementing a 5-point Heat Stress Scale. The scale takes account of air temperature, radiant heat, humidity & wind speed (factors collectively known as a Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) model. At a threshold of 4, 10 minute cooling breaks are implemented for players between Sets. If the score reaches its highpoint of 5, play on outdoor courts is suspended entirely, with play limited only to roofed stadiums and arenas for temperature control via air-conditioning.
The Olympics Environmental Health Guidelines
Olympics organisers the IOC followed suit with use of a WBGT based heat scale in 2023, with the measures first applied during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to protect athlete and spectator health from high temperatures. The IOC have since begun to actively pursue widespread adoption of the heat scale, specifically urging all international federations governing Olympic sports to adopt the method at their own events.
FIFA’s Mandatory Hydration Breaks
FIFA now allow referees to implement mandatory breaks for cooling and rehydration, mid-way through each half of a football (or soccer to some!) match. These were first seen at scale in the recent 2026 World Cup, with breaks enforced in all games throughout the competition. Dispute did arise as to whether these breaks had an ulterior motive, that being an opportunity for advertising breaks. However, FIFA denied this claim, stating a focus on player health, with many games played in high temperatures and heatwave conditions during the competition.
Looking to the Future
As climate change progresses, the increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves is unavoidable. The projections are clear, and thus, measures to adapt and build resilience in the field of sports will be essential.
Whether at the professional or amateur level, sport will undoubtedly continue. But to do so safely, proactive measures are key. Programmes to improve participant awareness, monitoring systems like the use of heat scales, the ability to react quickly. Expect to see all these measures and more become increasingly visible as the temperatures rise.
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