27 March 2025
It was great to attend another SportsPro event. The Relative Insight team and I had great conversations about the application of AI in sports, it was fascinating to hear how teams, leagues and other businesses are utilizing fan and customer data.
We spent two days absorbing some great intel from delegates and speakers, as well as hosting our own workshop. What was clear from my interactions is that organizations within sport want to use AI, they just need to determine where, when and how.
I’ve summarized my key takeaways from SportsPro AI below. I believe the themes that emerged at the conference offer a preview of how sports franchises, leagues and affiliated businesses will harness AI in the coming months.
Using AI to create personalized fan experience
To kick off the event, CEO Ben Hookway and I ran a workshop that explored how you can incorporate AI into your processes in a way that enables you to monetize it.
Alongside senior sports leaders, we discussed the role of predictive analytics and AI-powered automation to create efficiencies in sports operations. We also touched on some of the innovative ways organizations are monetising AI-driven engagement.
However, there was one key area that resonated with all leaders present: how to use AI to personalize fan experience. With broadcasters and streaming companies investing huge sums of money on sports rights, there’s not only increased competition between different sports franchises and leagues to attract fans — teams have to provide an experience better than the one viewers get from the couch.
It was fascinating to get franchises, leagues, broadcasters and other businesses’ perspective on this. They shared strategies and anecdotes on how they keep fans engaged and how they combat the key challenges they’re facing.
All of them saw AI’s potential in enhancing fan understanding. Building fan loyalty by using AI software like Relative Insight to analyze and act on feedback also has the knock-on effect of building revenue. This enables organizations to monetize AI when used correctly.
AI in sports characterized by hesistancy
One of the barriers around AI in sports we heard a lot at the conference was a fear of the unknown. We spoke to many delegates who had concerns over widespread AI automation. In an industry like sport with passionate consumers, organizations still want the human touch central to what they do; particularly when it comes to fan engagement.
SportsPro AI demonstrated that brands working within sports can have the best of both worlds. Speakers and delegates shared countless examples of how they’d incorporated AI to automate time-consuming tasks that plagued their workforce.
For example, regular post-game fan feedback surveys and reports can be tailored to pick out key themes. This gives fan experience teams the power to dive deeper into feedback – or analyze other elements of fan experience – knowing there is rigorous, reliable software in place to fulfill their regular reporting requirements.
Another area of hesitancy is around data security. A number of delegates shared their own or senior stakeholders’ concerns around how AI software would use their data.
Thankfully, there are easy solutions to address this issue. Responsible AI software vendors will be able to introduce appropriate guardrails, checks and balances to ensure software is using data only for its intended purposes.
Adding value, not new streams
One of the other misconceptions that the event addressed was using AI for revenue generation. Incorporating AI into your existing revenue streams and programs will add value. Trying to use it to create new revenue streams is more challenging.
It was great to see a mindset shift from some delegates as they absorbed information throughout the conference. At the beginning of SportsPro AI, many of the questions we heard were general queries along the lines of “how can AI help me?”
As the event progressed, attendees began framing AI questions within tactical and strategic problems they face day in and day out, looking for AI solutions.
Instead of asking how can AI help, their questions evolved to “how can AI help me solve this problem?” This is the mindset that enables sports brands to extract the greatest value from artificial intelligence.
Want to find out how you can use Relative Insight’s AI-powered fan experience insights platform to enhance your fan experience? Speak to one of our experts to find out more.
