NBA commissioner Adam Silver demoed a potential future for how NBA fans will use AI technology to watch basketball action at the league’s Tech Summit Friday. The proposed interface is named NB-AI.
Silver presented a situation where he could speak with an NBA trained digital assistant that had the powers to personalize a fan’s live game viewing experience on the NBA app. At one point, Silver asked the tool to take a live basketball game and recreate the action “as if it were a Spider-Man movie.” The result quickly recreated a play, turning the players into cartoon characters while adding dramatic music and digital effects more familiar to comic book fans than sports diehards.
Spurs rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama contributed to the demonstration, which also included ways for fans to view and buy the sneakers a certain player is wearing in real time, or identify close contests happening in the moment.
For now, most customer engagement with the AI industry generally comes through text (ChatGPT) or voice (Siri and Google Assistant). However, companies including OpenAI are increasingly focused on algorithmically generated video. OpenAI teased a new text-to-video model, Sora, earlier this week. Tech groups are also now looking at building domain-specific models, such as a bot trained on NBA data and therefore more reliably able to perform tasks and provide information related to the sport.
Computer-generated video clips also open up new questions about the impact of AI technology, from faking news events to the potential circumventing of athlete NIL rights by using AI versions instead. At the same time, every new version of next-generation entertainment options presents potential competition for sports when it comes to engagement and time spent.
Silver regularly calls his shot on the future of fan engagement during NBA All-Star Weekend. In past seasons, he has teased color-changing jerseys and augmented reality features that put a fan’s face in NBA highlights.
Meanwhile, even without next-generation AI, the NBA continues to push forward on merchandising and custom viewing options as it grows its direct-to-consumer business. Earlier this month, Silver met with Apple CEO Tim Cook to discuss ways the league could leverage Vision Pro headsets as well.
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