What happened in Sports AI this week?
- The Canadian Football League, TSN, and Genius Sports have partnered to enhance 2024 broadcasts with AI technology that syncs data with live video in real-time, to identify players, track speeds, and analyse quarterback throw times, improving fan understanding and media analysis.
- Florida Panther’s head coach Paul Maurice was victim to a deep-fake video which had him bad mouthing and threatening players. Every day we get closer to a world where such deep fakes become harder to detect.
- Foresight Sports (the industry leader in premium optical launch monitor and golf simulation technology) partnered with Sportsbox AI and their patented camera system to offer comprehensive real-time golf shot and swing analytics. Even 2024 U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau praised Sportsbox AI for helping him fix his swing.
- Bermuda Sports Radar partners with AI-Powered Magnifi (one of the leading automated sports highlights providers) to boost local sports coverage. An instance of AI improving local sport’s access to high quality broadcasting, that was once only available to the top leagues.
- Olympic athletes are turning to generative-AI for nutritional plans as they prepare for the Paris Olympics. Generative-AI is democrating athletes access to expertise that would have otherwise been too expensive or time consuming to research themselves.
- UEFA are trialing new AI limb-tracking technology to call offsides at the Euros 24.
Huge amounts of game data at the Euros is being collected into a pool, from which associations and clubs draw the insights for their match performance analysis through AI. - Quidich Innovation Labs, which enhances live sports broadcasts with AI technology, secured a Series A investment. Their latest product, ‘HypeReality,’ developed with the ICC, uses the Apple Vision Pro to bring the excitement of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 into homes worldwide.
- The American Magic yacht team has partnered with Altair, an AI company, to improve their vessel ahead of the 37th America’s Cup.
- AI can now decode the emotional state of tennis players with high accuracy.
- Generative-AI is revolutionising Sports Law by assisting with contract analysis and reshaping the educational landscape.
- Data privacy is a contentious issue. There is much debate around the balance between fan privacy and the desire to collect data to increase fan engagement, revenue and fan loyalty through AI techniques. “By 2029, 94% of advertising will be AI-enabled or touched in some way”. The data also becomes a target for cyber criminals.
- AI’s role in combating bad actors is also growing, for instance it is said to have a critical role in the response plan for upcoming Paris Olympics.
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