In a wink of an eye, technology has taken charge across all the spheres of industry. Be it health, education, finance, lifestyle, or sports; it has evolved it all for the better. One such dynamic technology leveraging almost every industry is Artificial Intelligence. In simple terms, it is a simulation of human Intelligence into machines that are arranged to think like humans and mimic their actions. Sports, an industry that was highly dependent on manual working modes, is now benefiting a lot from Artificial Intelligence.
AI is advancing sports and elevating them to another level. Statistics and quantitative analysis indeed play a significant role in sports; AI and its algorithms make quantitative analysis way easier and accurate.
Along with AI, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Machine learning extend the definition of sports and make it an all-new experience for the players and viewers. Today, the market is suddenly experiencing a boom in digital solutions for sports. With an increased number of matches, tournaments, and summits in a year, these solutions prove beneficial for the sports fraternities. Private players like IBM and Google provide an array of such solutions to manage the sports at a global level.
In our blog, we will discuss how AI is advancing the Sports Industry and helping it go digital.
AI Augmentation In Sports Coaching
Sports is a combination of qualitative and quantitative strategies at the place. Any game cannot be executed and planned without a good coach and a sportsperson. While planning a game, the manually calculated statistics are based on probability, and there is always room for error. Also, planning strategies for different players is a very time-consuming task.
With AI, tasks like these become very convenient and save a lot of time for the coaches to plan and execute the final strategies better. The AI advancements have now presented solutions were managing a player’s health and performance together is possible. With a combination of wearables, sensors, and high capturing speed cameras, the speed, curve, and spin of a tennis ball, curveball, and a penalty kick can be captured. This kind of data can help the coaches to plan future matches with different strategies.
Simultaneously, AI can predict the chances of winning and losing a match better. For example, many coaches are now turning to AI-based solutions for recruiting a new player in their team. IBM provides a solution where predicting a player’s performance in a match is possible. Apart from that, this dynamic combination of AI and sports have allowed ametuer entrepreneurs to plan start-ups based on this idea.
Digital sports has a very bright future; for any business to launch an AI-based digital solution, it is recommended to invest in mobile app development. A sports-related mobile application can be an excellent promotional platform for a company providing solutions based on Artificial Intelligence.
Solutions for Improving Player Performances
For a player to perform efficiently, he needs to be physically fit. Hence, sports organizations invest heavily in AI-based health monitoring solutions for athletes. These solutions are present in the form of medical kits, applications, and software. Athletes are made to undergo physical tests based on AI, which help them assess various health parameters.
By using these, companies ensure the physical fitness and well-being to be a part of the final team. Other than this, Athletes personally use wearable technologies to keep track of their health. PrecisionWear is an advanced and dynamic wearable that helps an athlete to reduce injuries. It has a mechanism that notifies the athlete in training about his/her body’s responses towards that training by measuring variables like imbalances, velocity, strides, force, etc. AI helps in collecting and collating health-related data to avoid any health-related problems in the future.
For any game, a good athlete is the strength of the game. Data related to an athlete’s performance help crafting and molding the last minute winning strategies. With the advent of AI in sports, collecting and managing performance-related metrics is very convenient. It helps the sport board to scout the players better and invest in the right resource. Similarly, AI helps the athletes to analyze their performances and decide better on the areas they need improvements.
An All-New Sports Broadcasting
Deep Learning has enabled an automated sports production, which is a replication of professional sports broadcast. It includes camera zoom-ins and zoom-outs, panning, etc.
Artificial Intelligence has enabled the cameras that capture sporting events to also capture the game’s highlights to be distributed to the television network or mobile devices.
Multiple lens devices do a panoramic recording and track the ball and player’s coordination. The AI automatically identifies the game highlights like goals and baskets to produce the highlight clips. This solution comes with an embedded editing tool for broadcasting.
Advanced Player Scouting and Analysis
The recruitment process in the sports industry highly varies from other sectors. For an athlete to be a part of the final team, he/she is judged on numerous factors based on health, performance, and previous track record. A sports organization or a group wants the best players to join them. Doing this is followed by various challenges.
AI enables a recruitment board to judge any player based on qualitative and quantitative metrics collected during his/her previous matches and health assessments. This leaves no room for human errors and provides accurate information.
With the applicable software, a team can check whether the selected player’s skills match the team’s strategies or not. Similarly, modern AI based solutions can help analyze each player’s physiology and how they function under stress.
Creation of An Enriching Experience With Virtual Reality
AI Being Used In Different Sports
–Cricket: It is an all-time favorite sport. Here, Artificial Intelligence is used to set the strategy of the game. Along with Machine Learning predicting accurate metrics becomes easy. For cricket, AI is currently being used in the Umpire Decision Review System and analyzing run-out results. In times of bad weather, AI can also be used in creating indoor or closed cricket stadiums, ensuring the match to be continued.
–Football: Undoubtedly, the procured insights from AI algorithms help improve a soccer match. Moreover, soccer coaches use AI to analyze the performance of players and recruit a credible player accordingly. Ollocip is a Madrid based company that uses ML algorithms to analyze the probability of success and failure in the field for the initial 15 minutes of the game.
–Basket Ball: Even basketball couldn’t keep away from AI and ML. The NBA has started to switch its attention to AI and ML algorithms. HomeCourt, an AI-based application, helps a basketball player to improve shooting. For any business to invest in such a solution, it is advisable to get a customized mobile app development solution for your online business.
–Baseball: AI has changed the recruiting patterns of the sports industry, including sports like baseball. With ML, VR, and automated broadcasting, the performance of an athlete can be analyzed better. This makes the credible selection process easy for the baseball coach.
Result Predictions
Machine Learning can essentially help in predicting the results of matches, be it cricket or soccer. In the sports where massive data is available, model outcomes can be created to predict future outcomes. Technologies and companies like SwarmAI and Ollocip with the use of AI are good examples under this category.
Sports Marketing
In an era where every industry is going digital, sports is no new. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Virtual Reality, etc., are driving the future of digital advancement. AI and Sports, as a combination, have been very successful for both the players and companies. Sports and gaming have set a new benchmark with the advent of VR sets, as it enables users to experience a realtime gaming emotion.
This increased the popularity of many underestimated sports and marketed their particular player well. Coming together of real-time matches and their promotional gaming benefitted the sports industry a lot. For e.g., before the onset of IPL matches, many virtual games to promote special teams float in the market. This gives start-ups an opportunity to invest in mobile app development for their related businesses.
The importance of physical fitness in the sports industry opened the doors for the health and technology industry to enter with dynamic wearable solutions (based on AI) for athlete health management. Moreover, sports is an all-new concept today. The advancements in technology make it set apart from the traditional definition of sports and gives various entrepreneurs a platform to market their existing or new sports set-ups in an all new way. Therefore, it will not be an exaggeration to say that AI will change the way sports are viewed, played, and marketed across the globe.
Conclusion
To sum-up, the advent of Artificial Intelligence in the sports industry created an all-new definition of sports. The technology has helped sports to reduce the manual working load (planning and strategizing) and provide accurate predictions for future outcomes. Solutions like automated broadcasting, AI-based health, prediction, recruiting software, and applications helped the industry to enhance their recruiting patterns.
With AI, players can now keep track of their health and performance better, cricket grounds can be created indoors, and run-outs can be reviewed with emphasized zoom-outs. One can’t imagine this happening without the support of AI in sports. Artificial Intelligence benefited not only athletes but also their coaches, as a player’s performance can be analyzed better on the basis of metrics collated by AI.
The dynamic combination of sports and AI gave many new star-ups an entry into the sports industry. Be it health wearables, performance monitoring applications, or gaming software, the sports industry gave an entry to various start-ups. AI has booked a place in the sports industry for a long time now. With evolutions in AI, its sensors, processors, and algorithms will be more refined, and sports will witness a more dynamic change. This definitely will change the way sports are recognized globally.
In addition to this, AI and Sports have marketed various games, applications, businesses, which has proved resourceful for multiple industries. The VR sets have again energized many sports that lost their charm. To conclude, this robust and dynamic combination of AI and Sports indeed has a bright future.
