AI FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out, or Future Of Massive Opportunity?

AI has a trust issue. In an industry such as sports, so heavily reliant on emotive storytelling and fan culture, can AI be trusted to build those fan relationships? Sports’ most celebrated moments defy logic and reason. It is the sheer unpredictability and intensely human moments that make sport so captivating.

How can machines and models help to maintain and grow the emotional connection that only sports can elicit?

Generative artificial intelligence and machine learning has quickly been positioned as the next great frontier to transform sports marketing and fan interaction. However, as with any other new tool, the deployment of these technologies must be driven by a clear understanding of your audience’s needs, and not by the novelty of the technologies themselves or a fear of missing out on them.

Key to this approach is maintaining an audience-first perspective, ensuring that all AI initiatives are aligned with the goal of delivering value to fans. At the broadest audience touchpoint this will include the growing automation of content clipping and distribution, ensuring that your biggest moments are seen on every channel, from search to social, with the minimum of manual effort.

Content automation will also enable sports properties to service their long tail like never before. Rights owners are already implementing AI-enhanced translation to maintain brand tone, while growing automation options in the market allow rights owners to service non-premium events with a more robust level of coverage. Combined, they bring a wealth of opportunity in bringing expanded content options to fans around the world.

For your closest and most engaged fans, AI-driven segmentation can help tailor content and recommendations across your website, app and direct communications as if you were working for each fan individually. Video content for your favourite team, merch from your favourite player or a subscription offering tailored to a fan will be positioned based on what you know about your audience’s online and offline interactions with your property. The potential for all rights owners to leverage D2C revenue streams is enhanced by serving needs on an individual level.

The huge potential, of course, also comes with significant dangers, and sports properties risk poisoning the well if they move too recklessly. Just as driving a car into a lake may well be blamed on the GPS, it is still your vehicle that is ultimately ruined. There are often no takebacks with dangerous AI implementation, and the responsibility is on us all to make sure we do not drive into the hypothetical pond.

Sports teams, leagues and governing bodies have an obligation to implement responsibly. They need to be accountable for what their systems produce, authentic to their fans in what they put in front of them and require a laser focus on data protection. The industry is already providing best and worst practice examples that sports should heed.

When it comes to how it can work best for you and your organisation; be curious, be careful, be strategic. Your priority today, however, remains exactly the same as it was ‘pre-AI’ - make sure that your fans win.

In 2024, it is imperative for rights holders to maintain a deep sense of curiosity. The landscape of AI-enabled opportunities is expanding rapidly, necessitating a balanced blend of optimism and scepticism to discern which innovations are genuinely beneficial for their organisation. The pace of change will only increase, and it is crucial for rights owners not to allow themselves to be left behind.

Key to leveraging these opportunities is digital platforms underpinned by comprehensive fan data. These platforms are essential for enriching online experiences, fostering fans’ trust, and encouraging their return, information sharing and transactions. Excelling in these areas positions rights owners at the forefront of AI integration within the industry.

Ultimately, in time, fans will win, benefiting from more engaging experiences and a personalised connection to the moments they love.

Which fans will win biggest? That is up to the rights owners.

Jamie Dos Anjos is lead consultant at Two Circles, and you can find its free Fueling Fan Growth With AI report here.