Talent detection, improvement of individual and collective performance, and injury prevention. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fully introduced into three of the basic pillars on which elite sport is based. Football, athletics, basketball, tennis, cycling, swimming, motorsport, badminton… There is no sporting modality that resists staying away from the revolutionary features of AI to try to get as close as possible to the perfection of the athlete and the modality they practice.
The volume of business generated by AI in the field of highly competitive sports is a good measure of the significance that the use of algorithms and the use of algorithms have already achieved. big data for improving results. According to work carried out by the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences (ICADE) of the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, the size of the global market for data analysis in elite sports will be 8.4 trillion dollars (7,000 million euros) in 2026, which would represent a growth of 27 percent compared to the 5.2 trillion dollars (4,000 billion euros) mobilized in 2021. Technological transatlantics like IBM have found an expanding market that distributes huge benefits to their investors. “The business area is growing, of course, decreasing has not decreased if you look at the trend of large technology companies that have billions of dollars in stock,” Juan Manuel Alonso, author of the aforementioned work entitled: The impact of Artificial Intelligence in elite sports: player recruitment, training and game strategies.
Alonso, who has a degree in Business Administration and Management, also does not grant exclusivity and profitability to the use of AI in high performance. The technological tricks are also beginning to be available to ordinary athletes: “Now there is a device that you put in your ski boots and it acts as a teacher. You put on some helmets and it tells you if you have to exert more or less pressure with your knees when turning.”
The evolution under the influence of AI of the American golfer Bryson DeChambeau, winner of the US Open in 2020 and 2024, is the main object of analysis in the aforementioned university research. Nicknamed The scientistDeChambeau has used an application called Sportbox AI that focuses on essential aspects of the swingsuch as hip rotation and arm movement. This has allowed him to gain about 25 meters in his hitting distance with the drive without losing precision. Furthermore, since his game is based on hitting power, DeChambeau relies on AI to reduce the frequent injuries he suffered in his wrists and back.
Football, as the king of sport-business, also captures the focus of the exponential advance of the symbiosis between high technology and sport since the limited use of algorithms or simple data analysis was put into practice at the beginning of the 21st century. Since the beginning of this decade, AI has already been integrated into multiple tasks, which has led to extensive use of predictive analysis, strategies and simulation models.
The aforementioned academic study also has as its core analysis the sporting and economic benefits that the use of AI for the tracking and acquisition of players has brought to Brighton & Hove Albion of the Premier League. Owned by the English mathematician Tony Bloom since 2009, the secret algorithms that he has developed are the envy of the football industry due to the good sporting performance of the southern English club and the capital gains generated in transfers. “I think that AI is going to equalize things, because teams or athletes with fewer resources, thanks to these technologies, will be able to achieve what others could only achieve with human capital. Brighton has had very good results, 15 years ago it could not compete in Europe, it was unthinkable,” Alonso emphasizes.
Brighton were playing in League One (Third Division) when Bloom acquired them. In 2017 it was promoted to the Premier League and in the 22-23 season it achieved its first European participation by finishing in sixth position in the English league championship and qualifying for the Europa League. The transfers of Moisés Caicedo, signed for 10 million euros and sold to Chelsea for 110, or that of Marc Cucurella, also transferred to the London club for 65 million after buying him from Getafe for 18, are clear examples of the benefits of using AI in talent detection and its profitability.
“The Brighton model is a good example within European football due to its intensive and consistent use of advanced data and AI applied to sports decision-making,” says Javier Gil, head of AI implementation and development for the Spanish football association. “The level of investment varies greatly depending on the size of the club, the league and the degree of digital maturity, ranging from millions to hundreds of thousands of euros, adding up to sporting, operational and business areas. Clubs already use AI on a more or less regular basis, although with different levels of depth. A smaller group can be considered highly involved, with advanced use in performance analysis, scouting predictive, injury prevention and support for decision-making in real time, such as Atlético de Madrid or Sevilla, with departments highly oriented to the use of AI,” emphasizes Javier Gil.
The vast majority of sports have jumped on this growing cyber wave of performance improvements. Tadej Pogacar’s UAE uses AI to analyze races along with the runners’ physiological information and collects the results immediately. The application, named Anna, is capable of processing data to maximize the performance of its runners in races. Andrew McHutchon, head of data science at McLaren, the team that has reconquered Formula 1 with Lando Norris at the wheel, has expressed the enormous advantage of having AI in real time: “Formula 1 has always been about speed and now AI allows us to answer complex questions almost immediately. With so much data at stake, this technology gives us a key competitive advantage.” In the NBA, tools are used to analyze historical data, player performance and logistics to create game schedules that drive viewer engagement and streamline the season. In addition to technical improvements in shooting mechanics, Steve Kerr’s Golden State Warriors use AI in robots that can make passes to help work the offensive systems. The simulation of the individual and collective defensive and offensive movements of the opponents is also part of the development of AI in basketball.
In Spain, the Higher Sports Council has allocated money to a good number of federations to implement AI. On November 25, the athletics company presented an innovative artificial intelligence platform developed together with IBM and its technological partner Habber Tec. The tool allows large volumes of information generated by athletes to be centralized in a reliable, accessible and secure environment: from training sensors and medical tests to biomechanical, physiological and health data. “We have tested it in walking, discus and hurdles, but the intention is to apply it in all disciplines. The project is that within three years there will be 1,000 coaches using this application,” says Paloma Monreal, director of Marketing and Communication of the athletics federation.
Talent detection is the objective of the badminton federation after the boost provided by the Carolina Marín phenomenon. “With the collaboration of the Polytechnic University of Madrid we are trying to develop a high performance profile in which AI helps us find the athlete we want to reach the National Center of Madrid,” says Arturo Ruiz, technical director of the federation. “With the combination of the tactical, physical and mental components of the Spanish athlete, who usually grows in competition, we seek to detect the player we should have. Then it is up to us to work on it. In the doubles we already manage the combinations of pairs that are beginning to give results after Carolina,” adds Ruiz.
The use of AI in sports is no stranger to the concerns that arise in everyday life. The suppression of the human factor of coaches and scouts, the restriction of the athlete’s creativity due to dependence or excess of data abuse, or even the ethics of possible technological doping are debates that are on the table while the development of applications increases the improvement in sports results and increases the business exponentially until it becomes a billionaire.
