By: Donovan Varney

judging” and “safeguarding from online abuse,” according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The implications of AI in sports can be analyzed in women’s athletics through professional and college basketball, as well as the Olympics.

According to a press release from Illinois-based WNBA team the Chicago Sky, their players are utilizing AI to protect themselves from online harassment. The Chicago Sky is a part of a new campaign called “Block the Negativity, Post Up Positivity”, where an app “uses AI to identify negative posts in players’ social feeds and blocks them.” This is an example of how AI is being used by teams, but not actually within the game itself. As the WNBA gains more popularity with athletes like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese entering the league, the criticism of its athletes is only growing. “The mental health of female athletes is heavily affected by social media comments, and with more eyes on the WNBA, it’s only gotten more challenging,” said Tania Haladner, CMO of the Chicago Sky. While the campaign aims to block inappropriate messages at athletes, they’re also encouraging fans and critics to share kind messages at the athletes.

Similar to the Chicago Sky, the Olympics also aimed to protect its athletes by using AI. IOC President Thomas Bach, said that over the course of the Olympics, he expected “about half a billion social media posts.” Utilizing similar AI technology to the Chicago Sky, athletes would be free from cyber abuse. But the IOC also implemented AI in other areas of the 2024 Summer games. Since 2018, the IOC has been using AI as a tool to help judges with the fairness of certain games. While the IOC isn’t solely transitioning to AI judges, the technology is just used by the judges as a tool to enhance the game. 

During the 2024 Summer Olympics, Peacock utilized AI for digital recaps for each day of the games. The ten-minute video recaps featured an AI recreation of the voice of Al Michaels, a famous sports broadcaster, called “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock.” Peacock did get Michaels’ permission to use his voice, and according to NBC, he was compensated for it. This is one example of not only AI’s use in sports, but also AI’s use in journalism. A growing concern among many journalists is that AI may take away their jobs. While Michaels did get paid for the use of his voice, there are jobs in the production of the content that were replaced by the AI technology. Despite this ethical dilemma, NBC coined the video recaps as a success amongst their Peacock subscribersand may continue to utilize this technique in the future. 

College athletics are also using AI in their sports. The University of North Carolina (UNC) Women’s Basketball team began to use it for game analytics and player scouting. The technology allows coaches to analyze moves and plays from athletes on film, and harvests the data and tendencies of opponents. The theory of technological determinism can be applied to the use of AI in sports too. That would suggest that AI isn’t just a tool, but it shapes the way the games are being played, coached and analyzed. An assistant professor at UNC suggests that AI will soon have a spot on the bench at basketball games providing coaches with immediate feedback on plays. While this hasn’t been implemented, sports are getting more and more ambitious with their use of AI, and it could be introduced in the near future.