As technology has rapidly improved in the last few decades, the world of sports has become more data-driven than ever, meaning athletes not only have to be physically talented at their sport, but they and their coaches also have to be able to analyze data and statistics in an effective way to help identify and improve from their mistakes.
Accelerating this trend is AI, which has the ability to analyze large amounts of information, find potential sponsors and make real-time predictions faster than any human can.
In a world of competition, the difference between winning and losing can come down to the smallest margins. However, with AI’s ability to quickly analyze a player’s performance and provide efficient feedback, players and coaches can now easily access valuable information regarding these small margins.
For leagues like the NBA, AI is used to generate highlights and refine their immersive NBA app. Additionally, AI offers referees a helping hand by determining if rules about goaltending, fouls or out-of-bounds were breached.
Sports enthusiast and Google Cloud employee Kumar Ramamurthy specializes in cricket and basketball analytics. He told The Falcon that AI has been more and more present in his sports work in notable ways.
“The first thing I’ve noticed is in the drafting process. There’s a lot of media watching scrimmages and training sessions, so there’s a lot of analysis that has to be done to draft someone or even point someone towards team management as a prospect,” Ramamurthy said. “So I [can see] AI being used in that a little right now. But as days go by and technology develops, you will see the scouting and recruitment videos and images start heavily using AI [for analyzing purposes].”
Additionally, with big-time sports leagues comes a global fanbase. Ramamurthy noted that teams and organizations are increasingly using AI to engage with fans, whether it is at in-person games or online.
“Personalized game highlights, virtual reality simulations, real time updates [all use AI]. And at some games, people can hold their phones out and connect to something that’s happening on the [Jumbotron],” Ramamurthy said. “AI is used to create a kind of simulation, and all of these things are making the fans a little more engaged with the game.”
On campus, the AI is being used by the girls’ basketball team. Teacher and girls’ basketball assistant coach Lisa Ginestet-Araki shared how AI tools like Hudl compile stats, so during the game the coaches don’t have to be doing stats and can focus on the game action. Hudl uses in-game footage that is reviewed by AI to compile statistics and highlights. While in the past, one would have to go through the numbers to find shot and rebounding percentages or identify important plays, Hudl does that work almost instantly.
“[On Hudl], you can just filter exactly what you want to see,” Ginestet-Araki noted. “It’s super cool.”
The benefits of AI in sports analytics changes the game for the analysts. Ramamurthy noticed that his job has become much more efficient as AI has become more advanced, helping the work he does in sports go on.
“I never used to deal with video at all; it was cumbersome for me to deal with [it] so I was just doing pure data,” Ramamurthy said. “But with data, you need to do analysis, and now what AI is able to do is do what an analyst can do 100 times better because there’s so much computational power.”
As AI expands to more and more facets of the sports world such as sports betting and officiating, the ability to understand and apply the data AI provides is becoming more and more important. Now, even players can use AI to their advantage.
“Players now will realize that they have more data available to them, and it will provide them a competitive edge,” Ramamurthy said. “AI could help with [many things] so it’s for the benefit of players to use this data that’s available to them.”
While AI may not be replacing coaching or refereeing jobs in the sports space anytime soon, it certainly plays a role in the current sports environment from high school to professional leagues.
“I see AI changing sports in the future. I think there’s going to be so many more statistics than you could ever get [before],” said Ginestet-Araki. “There’s going to be a whole new focus on optimizing different things that we never even knew to look for, or that we weren’t able to look for. So [AI] will definitely be a big change.”
