There is a new wrinkle in America’s fall Sunday routine--a subtle phenonenon that illustrates how digitization and fragmentation is forever changing how we seek and use information.

It seems that fewer and fewer people just watch football anymore. Ratings are soaring and revenue is astronomical, but more and more fans are no longer content to spend a Sunday lazily gazing at their city's team on the tube--and Sundays now witness new routines and behaviors with multi-media.

Most Sundays, a group of friends comes over to my house. Even though kick-off is at noon for most games, we don't start watching until five or ten minutes after for late arrivals--and with TiVo this artificial tape delay lets us fast-forward through commercials (especially annoying ones).

My computer is in one corner of the living room and my buddy James is parked in front of it the entire time. His head swivels like a tennis fan as he alternates from the TV to the computer screen watching real-time stats from any of a handful of Web sites. Periodically, someone will ask him to check on a particular player's fantasy stats.

Matt usually brings his laptop and connects to my wireless network to do the same--but he's also betting on games as well, and the laptop makes it easier to hide his gambling from his girlfriend on the other end of the couch.

Everyone watches the ticker for updates on players on their fantasy team--and I mean everyone. I don't know a person under 40 that does not play in at least one fantasy league. Fantasy football is a $1.5 billion dollar industry (even though the most popular league services are free) and between 15 and 18 million people play.

My friend Greg watches from his living room in Cincinnatti, but is quick to dash off IM's and cell phone text messages of trash talk whenever the Bears do poorly or his New York Jets do well.

As much as we clearly rely on technology to enjoy a longstanding Sunday ritual, we're not really that cutting edge. We don't subscribe to the NFL's cable network, none of us have the ESPN mobile phone (despite its "new direction") made especially for sports junkies to get alerts as if it was their personal sportswire.

But some things are clear from a snapshot of any given Sunday:

1: A growing portion of consumers won't rely on one medium at a time for entertainment
2: Fantasy leagues for all major sports continue to grow with new "leagues" for celebrities, movies, rock stars, and more.
3: Fantasy leagues popularity represents new avenues to reach consumers (Tivo recently announced a service to manage leagues through their set-top box.)

In 50 years, entertainment technology that makes today's plasma set look like Marconi's radio will proliferate so that the line between being in your living room and being at the stadium will only discernable by number of folks in line at the restroom. Mass personalization will drive dynamic on-field advertising that is served up to TV audiences based on their preferences. Enhanced sunglasses can even alter these settings when you are at the live event. Innovative media companies will even hawk "limited ad experiences" where consumers pay premium prices in exchange for fewer commercials--for those that want to just watch football.