What AI thinks Sheffield Wednesday's stadium Hillsborough will look like in the year 2070 | OneFootball

We've asked AI what Hillsborough may look like by 2070, and the answer is a combination of realistic predictions and some which are still sci-fi.

Sheffield Wednesday have called Hillsborough home since 1899, but plans to upgrade the stadium have come to nothing, so FLW has asked AI what it might look like in 45 years' time.

There was a time when Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough was the height of modernity. When selected for the 1966 World Cup finals, it was in no small part on account of the gigantic new North Stand, which had been completed in 1961 and opened with a friendly match against a Santos team featuring Pele the following year.

This isn't the case any longer. Improvements were made to the ground in the 1990s which were very necessary after the 1989 disaster there which killed 97 people and Hillsborough became all-seater. But today, the ground still looks very much as it did a quarter of a century ago.

Hillsborough has hosted international football before, at both the 1966 World Cup finals and Euro 96. Such redevelopments would be aimed at getting the ground back its former preeminence among grounds in this country. The club announced plans to renovate the stadium as part of England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup in 2009, but this never came to pass.

Some of AI's Hillsborough suggestions are grounded in reality...

ChatGPT predicts big changes for Hillsborough. It foresees a capacity increase to 45-50,000 and an almost complete redesign of the stadium.

Some of its predictions are firmly rooted in reality. It emphasises an increased reliance on renewable energy, including wind turbines integrated into light towers, solar skins on roofs, and underground geothermal systems.

The renewable energy market is still maturing, so we're still some way from this technology being a reality just yet. But there is no question that environmental sustainability will have to play a role in the stadium's future, no matter what.

There is also a focus on making the stadium multi-purpose, in order to host live concerts. Retractable seating is suggested in order to achieve this, as well as an underground museum which could offer a virtual tour of the club's history. Again, this is in line with recent trends towards opening up new revenue-generating opportunities for clubs through making better use of their homes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, AI believes that AI will play a significant role for Wednesday fans, with facial recognition replacing tickets for entry, AI-driven crowd management and interactive concourses, with an emphasis placed on holograms to enhance the match-day experience.

...But others still belong to the realms of science fiction

Because 45 years is a long way into the future, though, some of the predictions made for the long-term future of Sheffield Wednesday's home seem a little unrealistic to our 2020s perspective on it all.

Autonomous robots delivering food and drink to you in your seat still sound a little as though they're from the realms of science-fiction, while synthetic hybrid turf that "shifts for different uses" is certainly a long way from becoming reality just yet.

Given the number of problems that the club have accumulated throughout the 2024/25 season, the almost complete renovation of Hillsborough may feel like a relatively low priority for Sheffield Wednesday fans at the moment, but change will come over the coming decades, though whether it will incorporate everything that AI believes it will is very much an open question.