In the professional sport scouting industry, there is no specific science in the extensive process of attempting to choose the correct player/talent to fulfill a teams needs, and most believe that it is surely up to pure luck. However, professional German football clubs FC Bayern and Hertha BSC are looking to change that through the utilization of Sap Sports One AI technology to evaluate, compare, and handpick the best fit players for their rosters. Through the artificial intelligence program OpenAi, these two clubs will be able to compare potential prospects/players strength's and weaknesses based of thousands of statistical data that cover all aspects of a specific player including their individual performance, tendencies, and even risk/injury factors all in the span of a matter of seconds vs. what could take an organization an entire season to cover manually. "We were impressed by the high quality of the results achieved automatically in the SAP Sports One using generative AI. We expect huge time saving for us and, especially in the hectic transfer period, this can be another advantage for us," stated FC Bayern scouting head Markus Pilawa. The AI program is expected to make its debut and utilized throughout the remainder of the 2024 season.
Do you believe that the utilization of artificial intelligence will become a normality in the professional scouting industry to select the most promising talent/prospects? And if so, will it become a more reliable source than the opinions and intuitions possessed by experienced/respected scouts?
Link to article: https://news.sap.com/2024/02/ai-sap-sports-one-soccer-scouting-fc-bayern/
This is a topic that I think will greatly change the landscape of sports. I believe AI will become a normality in the professional scouting industry because of its data-driven player analysis and predictive insights. Because there are so many factors that impact a decision to hire/drop a player, AI algorithms can process vast amounts of information without the bias that impacts human recruiters. Additionally, the predictive insight AI offers are revolutionary. As a Chicago Bears fan, I am accustomed to managers making poor recruiting decisions despite stating how many future benefits the player will offer. AI can make predictions with accuracy and better analyze performance trends/patterns.
ReplyDelete-Michael Gadek
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/revolutionizing-college-basketball-recruiting-ai-larita-harrington-lrkhc#:~:text=Targeted%20Recruitment%3A%20AI%20helps%20identify,who%20offer%20the%20most%20potential.
From your blog the idea of using AI to recruit football players was a complete new concept for me and has not crossed my mind for clubs to use. I find it really fascinating that big clubs like FC Bayern has already implemented such practices into their practices as a business. I found this concept of relying on Ai to recruit members of a squad a little bit unusual because to get to know a player and its statistics is one thing Ai might be super helpful. But if they take away people who's jobs are to scout and watch these players on the field leaves out the human aspect of trust and proving ones self. Like I said before there is a better aspect to see someone in their element on the field rather than just looking at their AI statistics and going based of their skills and injury rates. This might be one of the areas of Ai I might be a little offset about, do you think players might find this odd?
ReplyDelete-Marissa Martinez
I definitely agree with you that there is more to just scouting a player than pure statistics. One crucial factor that AI fails to account for in its player evaluation such as the aspect of chemistry they are able to form with teams/teammates. I think this and other personal factors of the player are still more effectively evaluated/assessed by a real and experienced scout. With that being said, I don't quite expect there to be a complete transition to AI technology in the scouting industry and that it will rather be utilized as a tool by teams to more efficiently analyze the data it is capable of.
Delete- Conor Diedrich
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The implementation of AI in the scouting process will definitely change the sports landscape in the near future. Rather than emotion driven decisions being used when evaluating a player, the AI will be able to pick the best fit for a team based purely on statistics. I also can see some issues that will come with the sole reliance on AI for team building. Effort and hard work will be hard for AI to measure and those two feature could be the deciding factors when it comes to a players development. Additionally building team chemistry is incredibly important for a cohesive unit and without it the team will be in shambles. I believe that AI should be used by teams to pick out a few players that fit what the team is looking for, and then scouts should come in from there and evaluate further, to catch the things that AI would be unable to perceive.
ReplyDelete- John Douveas
Great blog! Before reading this post, I had no idea that football teams were using artificial intelligence to scout players. Using AI to scout players makes the organizations decision on a player more data based. Now, after reading this post, I do believe that the utilization of artificial intelligence will become a normality in the professional scouting industry, but not necessarily to select the most promising talents. I think that scouts will use artificial intelligence to compare prospects individual performances, as this is something they can look at more quantitatively. We need experienced and respected scouts to look at the players characteristics that go beyond their athletic ability. For example, artificial intelligence will have a hard time measuring a prospects passion, competitiveness, discipline, attention to detail, listening, and team work skills. It is necessary for a team to know these skills of a player to know if they are a top prospect. How do you think artificial intelligence will be used when scouting players?
ReplyDelete- Rylie K.
Thank you for the comment! I believe AI technology within the scouting industry will be purely utilized for analyzing relevant player data points including their notable statistics and injury rates, which will help determine a players fit on a certain team/club. With that being said, there is still a large human aspect that is necessary within the scouting industry that AI is not yet capable of accounting for, meaning it will not take the positions of experienced professional scouts anytime soon. However, it will be interesting to see just how evolved AI technology becomes in the near future and beyond.
Delete- Conor Diedrich
Thank you for sharing this interesting topic. I could see AI becoming more utilized for scouting and mostly to save time. It will be interesting to see how the AI predicts for the rest of the 2024 season and depending on the results it could be widespread very soon. As, AI continues to advance I could see it taking over some of the roles previously done by scouts. However, I do not see it replacing the reliability of respected scouts soon due to the human nature of scouting. There are qualities of a player that I do not think AI will be able to incorporate in a scouting report such as leadership and heart. How do you think this will affect the scouting industry?
ReplyDeleteAI and statistical analysis are definitely an interesting topic to explore when it comes to scouting athletes. Sports organizations around the world have begun using advanced analytics and statistics to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a player. This could be a very useful tool for sports organizations and player scouts around the world. However, I believe that this technology and method of evaluating players should not be relied on too heavily and could have drastic consequences for clubs. This is because there are a lot of intangible traits that should be evaluated and taken into account when scouting a player. These include things such as character, leadership, and communication that will have a major impact on their performance.
ReplyDelete-Kyle Forbes
Hello, I think this a very interesting and diverse topic. Although I think artificial intelligence could help scouters, I do not think it should take over from humans. I think there is a very personable side to recruiting someone and to find out more about their personality. When selecting new players, it is not only about their performance in the field but it is also how well they would fit into the locker room. I think AI could help in a sense of finding players whose talents could help the team and possibly create a pool of players to select from. Teams should continue to have humans in their scouting and recruiting departments.
ReplyDeleteI think this sounds like a great idea. If FC Bayern and Hertha BSC can leverage OpenAI to efficiently analyze player stats, it could revolutionize how teams build their rosters. While traditional scouting has its perks, using AI might be the fast-track success. Can't wait to see if this approach becomes the new norm in this game!
ReplyDelete-Tati Clinton
I really enjoyed reading this article. In an industry often based on tradition and on subjective evaluations, the introduction of AI-driven analysis represents a significant shift towards data-driven decision-making. The ability to assess potential prospects based on thousands of statistical data points covering various aspects of their performance, tendencies, and injury risks in a matter of seconds is truly remarkable. Markus Pilawa's acknowledgment of the time-saving benefits emphasizes the advantages that this technology offers, particularly during the intense transfer periods. This initiative not only demonstrates these clubs' commitment to staying at the forefront of innovation but also sets a precedent for how AI can be harnessed to enhance scouting and player recruitment strategies in professional sports. - Morgan Lyons
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have to say that utilization of artificial intelligence will become a normality in the professional scouting industry because today adopting the newest technology for your team and program is seen as a flex. If one competitor starts to use it you know other teams will surely follow. To them it's all about being the best and if the newest AI scouting technology is the best you are guaranteed to start seeing it used in more clubs and organizations. However, I don't think AI scouting is something beneficial for clubs. I think that there will always be those players that on paper are better than their teammates based on just statistical data. But something AI wouldn’t be able to pick up are aspects of a players personality that may make them a better fit for the future clubs and teams then that of the “statistically” better player. Some players may also lose motivation because they can be putting in more effort than others but still fall short on the statistical rankings. It can prohibit those players from ever going pro, even though without a technology they may have had the opportunity.
ReplyDelete-Meaghan Stack