August 13, 2020 7:00 pm

Friday, Neil deGrasse Tyson Explores Artificial Intelligence in Sports

What does the future of sports look like? Does it even involve humans? How will the fan experience change in the next 5-10 years? On this week’s episode of StarTalk Sports Edition, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice explore the rise of artificial intelligence in sports.

To help open the conversation, our first guest is Noah Syken, Vice President of Sports and Entertainment Partnerships at IBM. You may be asking, “IBM? Sports?” Don’t worry, we had the same question. You’ll hear about IBM’s long history in the sports world. We explore IBM’s relationship with Wimbledon and the US Open.

Find out how artificial intelligence is taking tennis match data and updating classic matches to current broadcast standards. We discuss the differences between structured and unstructured data. Noah tells us how IBM is using AI to learn the “fandom” of sport. We investigate why language is a key factor, if not the key factor, in creating the fan experiences of the future.

Next, we sit down with Rajiv Maheswaran, CEO of Second Spectrum. Second Spectrum is “the Official Tracking Provider for the NBA, Premier League, and MLS, and provides an unparalleled machine understanding of every game.” You’ll hear how Rajiv’s company uses machines to watch games, understand games, and create augmented content.

We explore the importance of John Madden in bringing data and statistics to the mainstream. Rajiv shares his thoughts on the ever-changing sports landscape and how it might go down the same path that the music and video industry went. Lastly, we discuss how watching games will change five years from now when we’ve fully gone from linear to digital broadcasting. All that, plus, you’ll learn how gambling was the first way fans personalized the sports viewing experience.

Please join us tomorrow for Artificial Intelligence and Sports at 7pm ET right here on our website, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. If you’re a StarTalk+ Patron or an All-Access subscriber, you can watch or listen to this episode ad-free at 7pm, too.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
– Ian Mullen