Artificial Intelligence: Revolutionising Sports Content
The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in applications across industries has been immense, accelerated particularly in the last 3-4 years. Virtually no industry is left untouched.
In sports too, AI has changed, reprogrammed or helped in re-strategising multiple areas and like others, the impact has been significant. From scouting, to sports medical applications, to player performance, training and even content, every field has been deeply impacted by AI.
As per Allied Market Research, the global AI in sports market size was valued at $2.2bn in 2022 and is projected to reach $29.7bn by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 30.1% from 2023 to 2032.
In sports, the role AI has played in transforming the utilisation of content is second to none. For an industry that revolves almost entirely around fans, it becomes immensely important for the sports organisations, be it clubs or individual athletes to remain connected and engage with their fans and content forms the connect. In this blog, we look at how sports content is set for an overdrive using AI.
Next Level Fan Engagement
Fan engagement typically is a two-way communication between sports organisations and fans aimed at deepening the connection between them. The whole process is to provide a wholistic experience to fans throughout their journey, from pre-match, during and post-match. Content, thus, becomes the most important way to connect with the far-away, digitally connected fans deepening the bond with existing fans as well as converting casual spectators into avid fans.
Enter Generative AI (GenAI), which enables sports organisation to scale-up their real-time content production capabilities by creating highlights, play-by-play commentary, converting in other languages, immersive replay and so on. Add voice tech to it, the possibilities of production become endless.
One GenAI application that is taking fan engagement through content to the next level is hyper-personalisation of content, that is granular to the individual level. In simple terms, you will get content which you like, maybe in the language you speak, of the players, clubs you like and so on. What other social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok have trained the algorithm to do and deliver, transfer the same experience on the sports platform.
Content Management
Every football match creates thousands of seconds of content. That is just the live matches. Multiply it by number of teams in a league and add the vast reservoir of historical content of each team in the league. We are talking about tons of data. At the team’s end, they would need a steady supply of content like replays, matchday moments and content of historical relevance to the present-day match, in other words, multiple snackable or long-form content from matchday or history to fit their content strategy. The challenge lies in segregating and distribution. This is an illustration of how GenAI can assist.
With features like transcribed audio, facial recognition, and logo detection, AI offers a rapid way to locate, segregate and distribute content to the correct recipient making real-time and streamlined content available. Such streamlined approach helps clubs in their fan engagement efforts.
Sports Broadcasting with AI
The broader area of sports broadcasting can comprise three functions, capturing, distributing and enhancing presentation. We already captured how AI is being used to assist in content distribution part above.
– Capturing Live Sports: In capturing live sports, AI-powered cameras are capable of capturing from multiple angles helping rights holders capture more footage. The relatively cheaper solutions from specialised companies eliminate the need for a human operator angles and are also in a position to capture amateur events thus creating more content. Further, the AI-powered cameras also produce more data for fan engagement activities.
– Broadcast feed and Studio Presentations: AI-powered graphics are being utilised to enhance the story telling capacity in studio presentations or the leagues’ global broadcast feed. Real-time statistics like player name, shot speed, attacking zone are being used effectively to increase the viewer involvement and attention. Tools like immersive replay gives viewers a look from the players angle while taking a shot or the goalkeeper’s angle while preparing to save a shot. As an example, the German Football League (DFL) has been known to be at the forefront of innovation across the Bundesliga.
SBI’s Postgraduate Diploma in Football Digital Media & Communications has an exclusive module on the use of AI and technology in sports communications. This is a program designed to help you gain an in-depth understanding of the business of communication, digital media and content strategy in the global football industry.
Beginning March 17, 2025, admissions are open. You can read more about the program here.
In Conclusion
AI can be looked at as the best tool for sports content once can ever ask for. It can be created, moulded or customised to the organisation’s liking with the singular goal to building a strong fan engagement and thereby a lasting connection.
As days go by and AI-led innovations are unveiled, one thing is for certain, viewer experience is going to get better and better.
