How to Implement Artificial Intelligence in Your Sports Coverage

How to Implement Artificial Intelligence in Your Sports Coverage

Overview

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly impacting the way we cover sports. It affects everything from the level of audience engagement and how we cover games, to the way the sports are played and analyzed.  Already, AI solutions are allowing automated match reports, edited video highlights and robotic cameras. It has been embraced by sports from tennis to basketball. The challenge for public service broadcasters is to navigate all the different AI technologies and apply them in a way that serves the audience more efficiently and effectively, giving them a richer experience. 

In this e-Master Class, EBU Academy faculty member Mark Egan will provide the necessary theoretical framework to understand the main tools to implement AI in sports coverage. You will hear from guest speakers who are using AI solutions right now and learn from their experiences. 

If you are not using AI to make the most of the media content and data you gather, your sports coverage may struggle to keep up with competitors in the years to come. This e-Master Class will approach AI from a practical content creator's perspective, helping to give structure and best practices for this important, but sometimes intimidating, topic. 

Aimed at sports journalists and editors with little or no detailed knowledge of AI and its impact on sports, this e-Master Class will offer contributions from top-class guest speakers currently using AI, so trainees will gain the understanding to begin using AI in their daily work.

Learning goals:

  • Help participants understand sports content opportunities such as automated capture and highlights
  • Learn which tools are available to make sports coverage more effective in gathering, producing and sharing stories
  • Give examples of how AI allows coverage of more events, more efficiently
  • Find out what AI means for the roles and skills needed in your sports teams

Who it is for:

  • Sports Journalists
  • Editors
  • Sports managers
  • Strategists

Topics Covered:

Module 1: Why AI matters to how we cover sport 

  • Understanding the key technologies  
  • The opportunities and challenges of using AI in sport
  • How AI is being used right now 

Module 2: AI to widen sports coverage 

  • AI for capturing sports action
  • Automating tasks to work at scale
  • Current use cases: what is working and what are the limitations?

Module 3: Improving the audience’s experience with AI 

  • How AI personalisation can serve your audience
  • Automating multiple versions of content using AI
  • Improving efficiency in archive retrieval and highlights

Module 4: Implementing AI technologies in sport   

  • How sports broadcasters are introducing AI in their workflows
  • Important AI trends to be aware of
  • Planning your next steps

Guest Speaker

Thomas Schoneich from the European Handball Federation will speak about the main tool they have been working with when it comes to AI is WSC Sports, as well as their work with minute.ly who use AI to identify peak moments within videos. 

Skills learnt:

Archives: How AI can analyze, tag and retrieve archive content
Artificial Intelligence: Understand how AI works and its uses 
Audience needs: How AI can serve audiences through personalisation, greater scale and machine learning
Data journalism: Why AI can make sense of big data and enhance data journalism storytelling
Digital newsgathering: Understand how AI can streamline and automate tasks
Editorial skills: How AI creates new editorial needs, roles, opportunities and challenges 
Innovation: Understand how AI can aid innovation and how to integrate it into workflows