Impact of artificial intelligence on the sports industry

Abstract
In the last few years, artificial intelligence has progressed significantly and it is evident in several
sectors. Sports in one such sector that has massively benefitted from the introduction of advanced
artificial intelligence technologies in the game. This paper is a research on the various ways A.I. has
impacted sporting organisations, fans’ experience, related professions, teams and clubs in a positive
manner. The paper identifies a number of practical A.I. applications that are currently being utilised
in various sports. An important aspect which makes the use of such technology attractive is that
player’s health and fitness, both physical and mental is being prioritised in research along with the
prevention of injuries. Current applications of A.I. have helped prevent human error in sports and
assure a fairer game because even though the refereeing officials are professionals, they cannot be
expected to get each and every single decision right. Officials also face less backlash from fans with
the help of the technology. Clubs and teams are also doing a lot to work on improving fan
experience and create a better stadium environment. Sporting organisations are investing lots of
resources into ensuring their player’s fitness and fatigue levels are closely monitored, including
sport-relevant data to help understand and improve any weaknesses. An important consideration is
that data has to be collected over a long period of time to understand fitness and monitor
progress. Businesses associated with sports are also being impacted. New technology is being used
to write post match reviews based on the statistics available, which is an example of the impact on
sport journalism. A.I has become a part of our everyday lives, from navigation help to improving
cyber safety, the technology has improved certain parts of daily life. The innovation gives us a clue
about how the growing technology will continue to impact sports in the future and become a more
integral part eventually. The number of doubters has gradually decreased over time too.

Keywords

1. Artificial intelligence

2. Injuries

3. Training regimens

4. Athlete health

5. Data collection

Introduction

The essay is a detailed assessment of the impacts artificial intelligence has already had on the
sporting industry and the changes we can expect to see in the future. Artificial intelligence has
become an important trend in recent technological developments and an increasingly crucial part of
our everyday life. From facial recognition to real time updates on google maps, the use of artificial
intelligence. is clearly prevalent and improved the way we do things. The crux of A.I. lies in data
 Impact of artificial intelligence on the sports industry
collection when it comes to sports and is only effective when information is collected over a large
period of time and under ideal conditions. Using this data, the technology aims to replicate human
intelligence and help further progress the human society at large. The technology has been
implemented in sports for a number of reasons. Incidents like Maradona’s 'Hand of God', although
iconic, were against the rules of the sport and led to the team winning a World Cup because of
major referring errors. Artificial intelligence is helping various sports prevent errors and providing
assurance that the rule of the matches are followed and any human error on part of the referees or
umpires are avoided. Basic examples of this would be goal line technology in football which
determines whether the football has crossed the goal line, even if it is 1 millimeter inside the goal
which cannot be otherwise judged or seen by the naked human eye. Similarly in cricket, the
decision review system has been implemented which gives teams the chance to review a decision
which they feel has been wrongly given by the umpire. Another aspect of how the technology can
help sports is the analysis of player performances in training and matches, prevention of injuries,
tracking of nutrition, fatigue and more. Through collection of data artificial intelligence will be able
to tell sporting organisations when a particular player is more prone to injuries due to fatigue and
even help the player understand where his strengths and weaknesses lie. The organisations can also
use the tech to devise strategies depending on their opponents and optimise a game plan which
maximises their chance of a win. Physical status of the players is currently being tracked but
through the usage of such technology clubs are trying to monitor the impacts fatigue and stress have
on a player’s mental health too. Outside the pitch, a lot of jobs are going to be lost as A.I. develops
and provides organisations with an efficient method of performing jobs such as sport journalism, in
which companies are aiming to utilise the tech to write post match reviews using the facts of the
game, which would assure an unbiased review of the respective matches. Billion dollar sporting
outfits are also looking to improve fan experiences by providing options to fans such as help with
parking outside stadiums and delivery of food to the seats itself. Experimental implementation of
A.I. has proven fruitful in several sports and looks to only be the start.

Literature Review

The combination of sports and artificial intelligence is an inevitable trend of social development to
conform to the new trend of the development of artificial intelligence in the world. (Dhar, 2017). In
terms of development as a society, it isn’t hard to see that the role artificial intelligence has played
in sports would soon be applied to the rest of the world to further progress in various fields.
Artificial intelligence has contributed greatly to enhance sporting events, with the introduction of
goal line technology in football and ultra edge system in cricket being prime examples of how the
 Impact of artificial intelligence on the sports industry
technology has boosted the sports. In other fields, we can see a number of real life applications of
artificial intelligence, a few of them being things we use in everyday life such as utilising facial
recognition to enhance security of our phones and fingerprint scanning for laptops. Even the Google
Maps and GPS navigation we use has been drastically improved because of the use of AI to
improve the user’s experience and provide real time updates. Sites like Grammarly are not just
correcting user’s grammar but are also providing better alternatives so that the text seems more
professional, all thanks to artificial intelligence. Another major usage by corporations is the use of
targeted marketing techniques which utilise AI to provide customers with tailored advertisements
based on their preferences. For example, if you search ‘Apple TV’ on Google, soon after you may
see ads from Chroma or other tech stores with television recommendations.

Coaches’ training plan arrangement, brain function state, routine physiological and biochemical
indexes, nutrition regulation, injury and illness conditions, and other aspects are systematically
tracked and utilised as data for artificial intelligence usage, measured for a long time to find out the
change rule of their function state (Cui, 2021). To analyse how artificial intelligence is impacting
athletes, we need to analyse a lot of other important factors contributing to the sportsperson’s
health. To ensure that artificial intelligence can be fully utilised, there must be sufficient data
tracking performed for a long period of time to see the changes in the physiological and
psychological states of the employees. For example, an athlete going through an injury period
would not be as healthy and happy psychologically compared to one without an injury. We also
need to factor in the nutrition plan of the athletes, illness and injury periods, training plan arranged
by the coaches etc. for a certain duration to see how these factors affect the wellbeing of the
athletes.

The establishment of real-time monitoring system for training combines the laws of human
physiology, human movement, and modern science and technology to the advancement in artificial
intelligence technologies, would create a strong theoretical basis, practical application value, and
scientific content (Claudino et al., 2020). As previously mentioned, artificial intelligence involves
large data analysis and an important part of that is to conduct assessments on a real time basis. The
athlete’s heart rates, movement and positioning on the field are combined with the use of modern
science and artificial intelligence technology to analyse the variations in positioning, stamina, and
how the athlete can conserve his or her energy, prevent injuries and further develop his/her game. A
company reputed in this field, Zone 7 is an example of an enterprise who is working on finding a
way for athletes to maintain their best condition and sometime in the future even prevent injuries.
This data will also prove to be a strong theoretical base for future studies.
 Impact of artificial intelligence on the sports industry
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, related technologies and applications come
into being, and industries based on artificial intelligence are booming, among which image
recognition and target tracking technologies are widely used in various fields, especially in the
fields of security monitoring and augmented reality (Ji et al., 2020). Artificial intelligence has
picked up rapid pace and is becoming one of the most important technologies of the 21st Century.
Industries based on artificial intelligence are growing and doing extremely well, and several AI
based applications have become a part of our daily life. Image recognition is a part of every newly
launched phone, offices have started to use facial and fingerprint scanning to boost security and the
gaming industry too has been booming after the launch of virtual reality ga,ing platforms. Other
examples of daily life usage include e-payments which make depositing, withdrawing and
transferring money very easy and also applications like chatbots for companies who cannot keep up
with every customer query, eg. Zomato. Most people do not realise how far artificial intelligence
has already progressed, even though they use digital assistants like Siri on an everyday basis to
perform functions like calling ‘Mom’. Another such assistant is Alexa, the product by Amazon
which hears the user’s voice and then performs the task like playing music, reducing and increasing
volume, shutting down or starting up.

Using the characteristics of athletes, and mobile artificial intelligence terminal technology, the
training process monitoring system is developed and designed, which uses GPS to obtain the real-
time positional information of athletes and provide relevant guidance for them (Ji et al., 2020). The
positioning of athletes is very important in sports like football and rugby. Newer artificial
intelligence technology allows athletes to be tracked in real time through advanced GPS systems
which can then be analysed to minimise mistakes. The data analysis also factors in characteristics of
the athletes such as the position they play (defender, midfielder, forward etc.) and then cumulation
of such data can prove very useful as several players of the same position can be compared with
each other and see where the room for improvement lies. 

Conclusion:

Artificial intelligence has already drastically changed the way the world works with the introduction
of virtual reality, improvement of cyber safety and more importantly Facebook’s decision to
rebrand itself as ‘Meta’ and create the metaverse - all of which heavily relies on functionality of
artificial intelligence. Through successful utilisation of such tech, changes in the way sports operate
are evident and artificial intelligence will only become a more integral part in the long term aim of
assuring fairness of games and maximising potential of players, fan experiences and the working of
 Impact of artificial intelligence on the sports industry
sport-related organizations. By using a hit and trial method or by experimental implementation of
artificial intelligence, we have already seen sports that have existed for hundreds of years, apply
changes to the traditional rules with great results. Errors on part of referees and officials are
expected but with such technology they can be rectified without the officials facing slander from
fans and multi-billion dollar organizations. The essay detailed how the sporting organizations, fans,
players and related businesses are going to be affected in the coming years as technological
innovations continue to play an increasing integral part in the success of a number of sports. Until
the introduction of artificial intelligence, factors such as fatigue and stress felt by players due to
excessive travel and rigid training regimes were never considered while considering the welfare of
players. Over time and by collection of data the technology will help players and organizations
reach their potential, promote athlete’s physical and mental wellbeing, prevent injuries and fasten
the rehabilitation process post injury.

As with any change, there were several skeptics when the introduction of new technology and
alterations in age-old rules were introduced. Safe to say, the technology has proven that change can
be good and that it is definitely here to stay. Such alterations give way to newer trains of thought
processes, improve acceptance of new procedures and improve the sport itself. Artificial
intelligence has revolutionised the sporting industry in more than one way and is evidently
beneficial for the sports, athletes, fans and the organizations too. Many industries including sports
have made the decision to adapt to growing tech trends and the results speak for themselves, with
fan satisfaction rates increasing drastically. Technological advancement is a key attribute as to what
will define the 21st century and artificial intelligence is at the heart of it. In terms of the potential of
this technology, it has created massive changes in just a few years of implementation and to a fan of
any sport, it is clear that this is only the beginning.

References:

-Claudino, J. G., Capanema, D. D. O., de Souza, T. V., Serrão, J. C., Machado Pereira, A. C., &
Nassis, G. P. (2019). Current Approaches to the Use of Artificial Intelligence for Injury Risk
Assessment and Performance Prediction in Team Sports: a Systematic Review. Sports Medicine -
Open, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-019-0202-3

-Cui, J. & Li, C. (2021). Intelligent Sports Training System Based on Artificial Intelligence and Big
Data. Mobile Information Systems, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/9929650
 Impact of artificial intelligence on the sports industry
-Dhar, V. (2017). What Is the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Sports? Big Data, 5(3), 173–
174. https://doi.org/10.1089/big.2017.29022.vdb

- Ji, M., Ma, B., Nie, S., Song, J., & Wang, W. (2020). Research and Analysis of Sports Training
Real-Time Monitoring System Based on Mobile Artificial Intelligence Terminal. Wireless
Communications and Mobile Computing. Published. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8879616