AI at Super Bowl Raises Contract, Copyright Issues for Pro Sports

Artificial intelligence is transforming the media and entertainment landscape, and sports are no exception. AI technologies affect nearly every aspect of major sporting events. As fans tune in to Super Bowl LVIII, they’ll see AI’s impact on how live sporting events are produced and viewed.

Sports have always had a symbiotic relationship with technology. Radio, television, DVR, online streaming, and mobile devices all helped boost audiences for football, baseball, basketball, and other sports. In turn, sporting events provided compelling use cases and helped spur widespread adoption of these technologies.

As with any disruptive new technology, AI raises a range of legal concerns. In addition to the well-covered copyright issues, companies in the sports industry need to be aware of other legal considerations when seeking to use AI to enhance the live sports experience.

Playing (AI) Ball

AI’s influence begins on the field, where coaches and teams are using it to improve talent acquisition, training, and in-game play calling.

The NFL, in a joint effort with Amazon Web Services, is using AI to understand player health and safety.

The Boston Red Sox embrace AI for a wide range of activities—from discovering talent and determining on-field player positioning to informing coaching decisions.

Networks are turning to AI in producing their broadcasts of live events. Globant, LaLiga, and Microsoft Corp. are collaborating on automated, near-real-time translations and subtitling of live soccer matches and other sports content—a use of AI that will make live sports experiences more accessible and inclusive for fans all over the world.

AI-powered game highlights, such as those used by NBC Sports and YouTube, can help fans who tuned in late catch up on the action. These improvements to traditional sports production can help leagues, broadcasters, and streamers reach more fans more quickly.

AI is also being used to make the in-venue experience safer and more efficient for fans in the stands. Some sports franchises are using AI to help mitigate the game day’s biggest annoyances—traffic, parking, and concession lines. Other franchises are leveraging AI to improve stadium security, such as by deploying advanced weapon detection sensors at entryways.

Fan Enhancement

AI already is having a major impact on how television and online audiences view and interact with live sports broadcasts. A pioneering development was Nickelodeon’s 2021 telecast of an NFC Wild Card playoff game, which presented young viewers with an alternative version of the game.

For Sunday’s battle between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, Nickelodeon will present an alternate broadcast: “Super Bowl LVIII Live From Bikini Bottom,” featuring SpongeBob SquarePants and other cartoon characters brought to life on the field and in the booth using AI-fueled and AI-powered augmented reality technology.

Each touchdown will be rewarded not only with six points, but also with virtual cannons filling the end zone with slime. Disney similarly partnered with the NFL and with the NHL last year on two experimental broadcasts featuring characters from Toy Story and from Big City Greens.

Fans who want a deeper understanding of the game will appreciate the enhanced analytics and informative overlays AI makes possible.

As seen on Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football broadcasts, AI models can predict blitzes, point out likely targets pre-snap, and identify open receivers in real time. Meanwhile, fans who enjoy betting may value real-time prop bet recommendations that are personalized to their preferences.

Viewers of all dispositions can appreciate an AI-enhanced second screen experience, whether through viewing personalized highlights packages, digging into advanced stats and performance metrics, or interacting with a witty chatbot that knows everything about their favorite team.

Legal Interceptions

A major set of legal considerations for the use of AI in sports involves contracting terms. There are the contractual restrictions imposed by AI tool providers on corporate users, which can include attribution obligations or commercial use limitations.

For a network or platform broadcasting or streaming a game, the applicable sports league may impose approval rights and other contractual limitations on production and consumer engagement uses of AI technology that overlay or squeeze back the live broadcast. And to the extent that games and game highlights are distributed on social media platforms, those platform operators may impose AI disclosure or other requirements.

Other limitations may arise from a sports league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players. Even if such agreements don’t expressly address AI issues, they may contain terms that could limit AI uses relating to a player’s name, image, and likeness or involving access to and use of player biometric, on-field performance, and health data.

Privacy and publicity rights also will be a concern to the extent that AI is used to show in-venue fans, coaches, and others whose images are captured and perhaps manipulated or processed using AI.

Although the US government has yet to enact laws regulating AI, states are passing such laws that so far are focusing on AI-generated pornographic deepfakes and election interference efforts. As AI tools become more ubiquitous, broader state legislation will likely follow.

Perhaps the greatest legal concerns arise from what’s also one of the most exciting aspects of AI in connection with sports: providing viewers with unprecedented control over the event they’re watching.

While sports leagues and broadcasters traditionally have determined what viewers at home see when watching a live event, AI has the ability to shift some of that authority to end users. In this new age of personalized content, we may not be far from a time when each viewer uses AI-based features to craft a highly customized, bespoke viewing experience, such that no two viewers see the game the same way.

As fans become co-creators, one can expect to see many of the same copyright, privacy, right of publicity, false information, and other legal issues that have been raised by user-generated content since the dawn of social media.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Shirin Malkani is senior counsel at Perkins Coie and co-chair of the sports industry group.

John Delaney is partner at Perkins Coie and vice chair of the technology transactions and privacy practice.

Mercedes Carrasco, Jeff Ong, and Tyler Robbins contributed to this article.

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