AI Discovers Rookie Athletes... Could It Become a Gamechanger in Sports?

Artificial intelligence (AI) will be introduced in recruiting rookie players for overseas professional soccer leagues.

On the 23rd (local time), IBM announced that it has developed a generative AI called 'Scout Advisor' in collaboration with the prestigious Spanish professional soccer club Sevilla.

Sevilla FC match scene
Photo by AFP Yonhap News

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Scout Advisor is based on IBM's enterprise AI and data platform 'WatsonX' natural language processing technology, combined with the vast player information data owned by Sevilla. The generative AI enhances the efficiency and accuracy of the player recruitment process.

When Sevilla's scouts input the key characteristics of the desired rookie player, Scout Advisor selects a list of suitable candidates and provides summary reports for each player. For example, if commanded to "find a right midfielder with good dribbling skills," Scout Advisor filters the candidates, recommends them, and generates reports for each player.

Top-tier soccer teams invest millions of dollars in player scouting, but have so far relied only on subjective observation and manual data analysis. IBM and Sevilla expect that by introducing Scout Advisor, they can bridge the gap between quantitative metric-based scouting and human-centered observation, thereby strengthening their competitiveness in player recruitment.

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