Can a data-backed approach change sports as we know it?

01 Been in a fruitless loop of a conversation about your Cab complaint or a flight refund on a social media platform? Chances are you have been speaking to an AI powered bot employed by the respective cab service provider and airlines to help with some tasks which have the same or similar questions as well as solutions. Worst still, you may be interacting with a fake account. Advanced ML is making the bots seem more and more humanlike by adding nuances which correspond to human behaviour in a very convincing manner and hence these bots are hard to identify. We take a look at ways in which one can identify bots.

Social Media Bots

Can a data-backed approach change sports as we know it?

Artificial Intelligence can be easily applied to anything that can be measured or calculated. Sports is no exception. The recent past has seen an increased use of AI in sports. With its growing impact and positive outcome when applied to the field, it won’t be wrong to assume a greater role for AI in sports in the times to come. Here’s how it is being currently used across many areas.

Recruitment

The fitness and potential of players is the key to forming strong, performing teams. A major area in which AI helps in sport is in the search for new players. Previous data from performances can be used to predict the potential of players in the future. For baseball, player data can be collected through AI such as speed, angle etc. to present insights which can be extremely useful to the recruiters in making their final decision with respect to which players to take on-board.

Training

By using Virtual Reality tools and apps, baseball hitters and batters can be trained to perfect their play. It can also be used in doing the correct workouts. Asensei has a coaching platform which steers individuals to the correct method of workouts by using motion capture sensors fitted in sports apparel. Besides athletes, coaches can be trained to make better decisions about the line-ups before a match by analyzing the opponents on various parameters such as speed, tennis serve, pass, etc.

Performance Analysis

Players and coaches can use AI to review their own performance and also that of the opponents and get insights about the strengths and weaknesses of particular players. Video Assistant Referee (VAR) and Goal Line Technology (GLT) have been extremely beneficial in soccer by helping with additional support which referees can make use of to arrive at the right decisions. ML-based Apps have also been developed which can help predict the direction of the game (win or loss) for the coming 15 minutes. Mustard uses AI to analyze an athlete’s performance and gives tips to improve it.

Something for the audiences too!

Spectators too can benefit from AI. Tennis fans are particularly in luck thanks to IBM’s Watson AI technology which helps them see the game up close. IBM Watson recognizes the best match moments, listens to crowd cheer, and detects reaction, notices the body language etc. and generates highlights of the match accordingly. Sports teams also use chatbots to answer queries of fans on a wide range of subjects. If there’s something the bot can’t handle, human reps are roped in to intervene.

The future is exciting! Write to us at contactus@infiniteanalytics.com to know how we can help with your AI journey.

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