Artificial Intelligence (AI) has played a major role in sports in the recent years. From enhancing the performance of the players to using AI to make crucial decisions, the technology has immensely contributed to the field of sports. Sportradar is one such company that develops technological solutions for sports to help grow the game and support talent development.
In an exclusive interaction with InsideSport, Sportradar Senior Vice President – Automated Content (Artificial Intelligence & Computer Vision) Luka Pataky elaborated on the technology developed by the company and how it helps in enhancing fan engagement apart from other topics. Here are some excerpts from the interview.
How is AI poised to increase commercial benefits of sports industry?
Talking about the boost AI can provide to the sports industry, Sportradar Senior Vice President Luka Pataky said that with the help of AI, Machine Learning (ML) and Computer Vision (CV), it has enabled better collection and analysis of a lot of data in a short period to create engagement like never before.
“Data is the key to unlocking commercial benefits for the sports industry. With sports consumption becoming increasingly omnichannel, fans and viewers are leaving critical data across every single touchpoint, creating a wealth of analytical possibilities as well as new revenue streams for sporting organizations including teams, leagues, and broadcasters,” Luka Pataky told InsideSport in an email interaction.
He further opined, “Using data analytics, sports leagues can create an immersive experience featuring personalised content for fans to enhance overall enjoyment, loyalty, and growth of the sport“.
Can you spell out a few instances of how AI has helped track fan engagement?
When asked about instances when AI has helped track fan engagement, Luka Pataky said that the needs of the sports industry were converging and that fast, deep, and contextualised data is the key ingredient to unlocking value.
“We have put systems in place to analyse all the data at different sports events across the world, which we apply across our verticals to expand our product offering. We have automated processes to collect granular data and we have network functions to get even more information from it, generating targeted insights,” Luka Pataky said.
Elaborate on personalising sporting experiences using AI?
The Sportradar official cited several examples where AI was used by world bodies in major tournaments. He insisted that with more leagues around the world understanding the potential of personalisation, the use of technology will continue to increase to enable them to deliver an enhanced sports experience.
“There is a direct correlation between personalisation and monetisation. Viewers engage more deeply with content that is relevant to them and their interests, increasing purchase intent and gently nudging them further down the acquisition funnel. AI has made it possible to get deeper, richer data and drive more meaningful operational analyses from it,” Pataky said.
How does the technology developed help different sections?
“We use computer vision to automate data capture and analysis, creating a wide set of deep data points, with increased accuracy and speed. This enhanced data is the basis for our business’ future-facing products. We invested in the latest public cloud infrastructure which makes our data more scalable, durable, and elastic, and cuts latency. We are also committed to upholding the integrity of sports, hence, we developed our Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) which monitors betting activity, using AI and ML capabilities to detect suspicious matches,” Pataky said.
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