AI Highlights in the Sports Industry

Advantages: AI can be used to track individual objects and players on the field of play. It can also be taught to identify specific actions that they perform, upon which a broadcast overlay can be installed to show real-time stat tracking, automated highlights, curated graphics, and game summaries.

Upon being trained with data from heavy amounts amount historic footage, AI can look at current game-footage and track player movements, helping provide insights and suggestions for athletes to better their performance and movements in practices and in-game. The AI models can create an idea for what an optimal performance looks like and apply that to athletes.

Trackers on athletes’ bodies can identify movements from individual parts of their body, and can detect if a movement has the possibility to cause injury. Whenever a dangerous movement is detected, trainers and staff can be made aware. This information can also be used by team staff to diagnose the severity of the injury.

Disadvantages: Challenges that exist with implementing AI into the normality of sports include privacy regarding the data collected and where it is coming from, the biases that arise from the data the models are trained on, the transparency that companies will show when questioned of their operations with AI, and the accuracy of the data that the AI presents.