AI & Sports: Impacting the fan experience & athlete performance w/ Sebastian Oddo & Qiana Martin

How do we balance the art of a sport with data analytics? Can data account for the unpredictability of a player’s performance? What will the fan experience be in the future?

In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Sebastian Oddo (Senior Vice President of Innovation for Octagon) & Qiana Martin(owner of Eat Soccer). We talk to Sebastian and Qiana about how AI is impacting athletic performance, the fan experience in a stadium, and how we watch a game at home. We also get into the rise of eSports, what leagues can do to engage distracted fans, and how players may be mimicking moves they learned in a video game.

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“[T]he interesting part about AI is that it uses historical data, right? And sports is the sports industry has captured data for as long as I can remember...they're sitting on the perfect opportunity for AI within the leagues and within the teams. “ -Sebastian Oddo, Senior Vice President of Innovation for Octagon

“I think you still have to have that balance between the art of this sport, which is something soccer is known for. Kind of the je ne sais quoi, the joga bonito of soccer versus the data analytics that says perhaps you need to bench this player and put someone else in.” -Qiana Martin, owner of Eat Soccer