“Free Baseball”, licensed under CC BY-ND 1.0 Universal
Fans may not realize it in real-time, but artificial intelligence has seeped its way into virtually every corner of their favorite sports teams.
It doesn’t matter which sport or league you may follow. It also doesn’t matter which area of the game you are referencing. Artificial intelligence is now everywhere. Teams use it to track player vitals. Executives use it to store and access financial information. It is deployed to expedite arena experiences—mainly purchases. Gambling companies use it to process wagers and reach customers. For example, if you’re catching an Indiana Fever game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, live transaction options and processing from mobile Indiana betting apps will be powered by Artificial Intelligence. Pro sports marketing teams will also use it to analyze data and disseminate algorithm driven ads germane to your browsing history when connected to their on-site wifi.
This list goes on. Generally speaking, though, people are wondering just how far into the games and leagues we love artificial intelligence integration will go. Sure, they will never replace the athletes themselves. But what about the officials, referees, umpires, etc.? Will we ever get to a point in which the regulation of games and contests is entirely automated?
It is a question that would have seemed ludicrous just a few years ago. Now, some believe it’s inevitable. The driving forces are pretty clear cut: accessibility, and the rise of sports gambling in the United States.
Let’s start with accessibility. The tech is out there, and it’s only getting better. Billion-dollar entities like pro sports organizations will always have the latest gizmos and gadgets available to them. They are also run like businesses. If artificial intelligence can help streamline operating costs or increase the accuracy with which competitions are regulated, they will explore its utility to no end.
The sports gambling element, meanwhile, is a more recent phenomenon. Fans are wagering on games and futures more than ever. That inherently increases the stakes of every down, play, at bat, tennis swing, etc. Using artificial intelligence to help monitor in-game rules—fouls, errors, infractions, penalties, et al.—could theoretically result in fewer overall mistakes. And that, in turn, could ensure outcomes are no longer beholden to some level of human error.
Artificial Intelligence is Already Helping Officiate Pro Sports
To that end, the proliferation of artificial intelligence is already impacting how competitions are officiated. Take the 2025 Wimbledon tennis tournament as an example. Around 300 line judges were replaced with AI robots, as reported by The Guardian. What’s more, we have already seen Major League Baseball use AI technology to track live strike zones. The National Football League, meanwhile, helps use it to mark where the football gets placed after each down.
There are other instances of artificial intelligence being deployed across various sports. The extent to which they are used vary. Overall, though, they are currently a tool in each sport’s belt. They have not come close to replacing human referees, officials and umpires altogether. Many are positing this will change somewhat soon given the expanded integration of artificial intelligence. Consider what Ben Dowsett wrote for Scientific American on this very subject:
“For most of sports history, the task of officiating has fallen largely to humans. People have been responsible for determining whether a ball was out-of-bounds or if a player was offside. Over time, technologies such as instant replays have provided referees with helpful information to make their calls. But the decisions still largely fall to human refs—and the human error that comes with them. That’s where artificial intelligence comes in. In the mid-2000s tennis became one of the first sports to make use of motion capture and computer algorithms to determine whether a ball landed out-of-bounds. Today’s system, maintained by motion-capture company Hawk-Eye Innovations, is so much more accurate than humans that line judges will be eliminated entirely in ATP matches by 2025.”
The sophistication and spread of this technology seemingly points to a future in which human intervention during sports games is minimal—if not entirely eradicated. But is that actually the case?
Using AI to Officiate Sports is Far from a Perfect Solution
In just about every case of AI implementation for professional sports, the leagues report issues that so far preclude the tech from taking over. Most commonly, as Dowsett notes in his feature, is the time consumption.
Machines can take a little too long to analyze data of certain plays, calls and issues and thus require human intervention. There have also been plenty of reports of flawed interpretations. Put another way: Artificial intelligence continues to make mistakes, just like humans. This is why you see warnings on all of these Large Language Models (LLMs) about confirming important information. These machines are still flawed.
And yet, many within the tech sector believe perfection isn’t just achievable, but that it’s imminent. That sounds ridiculous on its face. Then again, most of us would have probably scoffed at how anyone who told us LLMs like ChatGPT and Google Gemini would be so widely used today. Alas, here we are.
Whether perfection in sports officiating is actually achievable remains to be seen. If it is, though, you better rest assured there will be leagues who replace officials, save for maybe one who is tasked with overseeing everything. Heck, pro tennis is seemingly already headed in that direction.
At the same time, we have to consider the reality of the situation. We still feel a way off from that type of universal deployment. More than that, many of the officials in the major North American sports—specifically the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB—are members of incredibly strong unions. Their reps will no doubt fight tooth and nail to put AI-takeover safeguards in place.
Ideally, the two resources, refs and AI, would be used in tandem to maximize the speed and efficiency at which competitions unfold. Perhaps that is how all of this spans. But we must also recognize we are journeying into uncharted territory. Few saw AI getting this advanced so quickly. Now that the tech is outpacing some of the loftiest expectations, there is a chance, however slim, a time will come when most sports decide that human officials have outlived their purpose.
