FOX Sports scores with Watson AI at Women’s World Cup
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 25 June 2019

The round of 16 in what has been a hugely successful and exciting tournament is about to close and as it gears up to screen the latter stages, FOX Sports has revealed the part that artificial intelligence has played in its coverage.

The broadcaster has turned to IBM Watson Media to infuse AI analysis, data transfer and live-streaming into its transmissions from France.

Among the technologies at use include Player Spotlight built with IBM Watson, an AI-backed tool that helps generate stat analysis for match commentary. Watson AI offers the ability to reason, understand, categorise and learn what’s inside video footage, allowing FOX Sports to produce tournament trends and stats on demand. The solution takes feeds from leading sports data provider Opta and collects and analyses every pass, goal and penalty kick, all in real-time. FOX Sports commentators then interact directly with the Player Spotlight tool by entering queries into a navigation function, queuing up related data in real-time.

A year ago the two companies had a similar arrangement the two companies had a similar arrangement for the FIFA World Cup in Russia, providing an artificial intelligence collaboration across multiple FOX Sports properties and programming.

From a mainstream broadcast technology perspective, FOX Sports is using IBM Aspera live-streaming technology to offer access to match footage. Its use is said to have ‘significantly’ shortened production cycles while increasing the quality and value of the content produced. FOX is also using new real-time auto archiving functionality that helps allow raw, high resolution footage to be stored offsite within seconds of match completion. In total, it’s estimated that roughly four to six petabytes of content will be streamed over the course of the tournament, more than double that of the 2018 Men’s World Cup.

“IBM’s AI and live-streaming technology has helped transform our production of key events like the Women’s World Cup,” said Zac Fields, FOX Sports SVP graphic tech/integration. “We look forward to leveraging the advancements in IBM technology to offer fans a comprehensive World Cup experience.”