For each issue of the Protein Journal we interview our favourite innovators, technologists and designers and quiz them on a particular topic. For this summer’s Performance Journal we grilled a selection of sporting’s finest about The Future of Sport.

First up is New York’s Bud Shmelling of No Mas and The Victory Journal.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I work for No Mas and help run the Victory Journal, a quarterly magazine that is concerned with the fascinating cross section of sports and pop culture.

What is No Mas?

No Mas started out as a small apparel company founded by Chris Isenberg. He was interested in the intellectual side of sports and the history. He started reproducing vintage sports shirts, from Ali to Baghdad Oilers, and it grew from there. We started a blog on the side, launched a creative agency Doubleday & Cartwright, and finally started the Victory Journal.

Who are the audience for No Mas and the Victory Journal?

It’s a niche market but there’s a very dedicated fan base. It’s people who grew up watching Wide World of Sports [cult US TV series], who are into Evel Knievel and old wrestling, who appreciate Doc Ellis and Bill Spaceman Lee [professional baseball players in the ‘70s]. So it’s not the typical guy who will go to a bar on a Sunday and root for his favorite football team, it’s definitely a little bit more the intellectual side of sports.

Would you say there’s a Golden Age of sports?

The ’70s might’ve been a golden age, before things became so commercialised and reprocessed purely to make money and draw fans. I think there was maybe a little bit more of an innocence and a projection towards the sport itself, rather than what it is right now.Has technology changed sport for better or worse?

I guess there have always been some forms of technology used for both good and pernicious ends. In the 1920s and ’30s the New York Giants were famously caught using binoculars and stealing signs and spying on people. Nowadays it can be used to a negative effect in the way that sports are officiated, with instant replay for example. It’s gotten way way too involved, where the game is being slowed down and the human aspect is being replaced by machines. Mistakes are made, but that human element is one of the things that we like so much.

What’s next for the Victory Journal?

We’re working on the next issue which should be coming out soon, dedicated to Mohammad Ali’s 70th birthday. We just got nominated for “best self-published magazine in the world” [by the SPD], so that is really starting to open some doors!