Few things infuriate athletes and sports fans more than a bad call by a referee. But heated disagreements between coaches and refs may one day be a thing of the past. Because with the increasing use of technology, including AI, across major sports, referee errors are on the decline.

The English Premier League, for example, reported that the introduction of Video Assistant Referees (VAR) since the 2019/20 season has improved the rate of correct refereeing decisions — 96 percent, up from 82 percent — in league football matches. The result is fairer outcomes for teams and their supporters.

It’s just one way in which AI is reshaping the experience for athletes, coaches, team owners, broadcasters, and spectators alike. The Commonwealth, a voluntary organization of 56 countries committed to shared values like development and peace, estimated in a March 2024 article that the use of AI solutions in the sports market would grow from US$1.85 billion in 2023 to US$6.59 billion in 2028.

Read on for four areas where AI is hitting a home run.

1. AI, the unseen assistant

AI may be ubiquitous, but the core of sports remains human. It’s the thrills and spills of human competition that make sports so compelling. At elite levels, the 50m freestyle dash or 100m sprint is so exciting because the winners are often separated by the slimmest of margins.

And that’s where AI has shown itself to be most useful, as a 24/7 assistant: to coaches, referees, and fans. AI-powered solutions enhanced many aspects of the marquee events on and off the field, including making more accurate line calls in tennis, serving as training aids to aspiring world champions, and putting millions of fans in the action, whether watching at home, in a bar, or at a stadium. It’s been useful in managing crowd flow in and around venues, improving spectator safety, and helping to prevent cyber abuse.

2. AI + athletes: enhancing performance and well-being, discovering talent

Run faster, jump higher, lift more. Athletes subject themselves to grueling regimes and sacrifice much to be the best. Passion and talent go a long way; AI can provide an edge.

Smarter training

Previously, graphical analysis and sensor technology was used to study performance. Now, AI informs athletes and coaches on how they should train and play. AI-assisted video analytics of training sessions and games analyze factors like hand flexibility, shot accuracy and body posture, and benchmarks them against personal, competitor and historical records to identify areas for improvement.

Injury prevention

Injuries are cause both physical pain and heartache. Wearable tech and video analytics can pre-empt overextension or injuries. AI-based recommendations for personalized training and early intervention plans can guide coaches. When injuries do arise, AI can identify therapies for faster recovery. 

Talent discovery

Scouts are using AI to discover talent in remote corners of the world: An app in Senegal lets members of the public submit videos of football players taken on their smartphones to national scouts. AI is used to sift through the videos to identify promising talents, with results stored in a database.

While AI excels in tactical games like chess, its applications in dynamic sports are less developed. The complexity and variability of physical games, the unique attributes of each athlete, and volatile external conditions, make it difficult for AI to simulate every scenario. As AI continues to improve, however, expect these hurdles to be increasingly overcome.

3. AI + referees: fair play

How many tantrums and scuffles have erupted because of perceived referee or umpire bias or an outright bad decision? So, it’s natural that AI-assisted referees are now in use across sports to improve fairness, from team events like volleyball and football to individual pursuits like swimming and gymnastics.

Millimeter precision

High-speed cameras and sensors capture athletes’ minute movements, revealing insights invisible to the naked eye and mitigating subjectivity. Did a toe cross a line? How perfect was that dive? Which of the runners, neck and neck, finished first? AI can enhance judgment accuracy in near real-time.

Maintaining excitement

Although AI is a powerful tool, the interplay between rules, circumstances and split-second decision-making requires human oversight. This is the case in sports like gymnastics and diving, which have an artistic component, and fast-moving team sports such as rugby and football, where referees have discretion to prioritize the flow of play rather than disrupt a match over a minor infraction.

4. AI + audiences: fan experiences reach new heights

Front-row seats

Spectator sports have been elevated to another level with AI. Audiences get front-row viewing experiences both at home and in the stadium, with close-ups and replays from multiple camera angles. Generative AI has enabled broadcasters to record footage from various vantage points, then streamline the post-production process, allowing them to deliver more content to viewers, quickly.

Increased knowledge and learning

In the past summer, Tencent introduced several innovations, including the XR Virtual Studio, which leverages AI for design and animation. Many viewers turned to Yuanbao AI assistant app, the chatbot built on Tencent’s proprietary foundation model, Hunyuan, to learn about the different sports while watching them on screen. The data gathered is a boon for nerds who can now access record amounts of sports and player information.

Personalized experiences, higher engagement

Live-streaming technologies have unlocked real-time translations, supplementing English commentaries with Chinese subtitles during live events. Zero-shot learning, which upends the traditional dataset learning model, is set to offer hyper-personalized viewing experiences based on simple queries like ‘identify the player in the red number 1 jersey’.

Managing challenges

The use of AI and other technology presents challenges, including disrupting the flow of play, and raises concerns around athlete privacy and unfair competition. Strong privacy and governance systems must be developed to build trust and guidelines in place to ensure that the qualities that make sport special remain.

Winning combination

Sports excite and unite us because anything can happen, and athletes push the limit of what it means to be human. It can bring strangers and communities together. AI can enhance those qualities by helping athletes perform better for longer, reducing scoring and refereeing controversies, and immersing us in competitions like never before.

AI may even help discover the next Pelé, Nadal, or Biles. Used the right way, AI and sports can be a winning combination.