Patrick Lucey

Artificial intelligence (AI) has played a central role in professional sport for decades, powering innovations in broadcasting, officiating, recruitment, match analysis, and tactical optimization. While billions of fans consume sport through media and digital platforms, fan engagement remains its largest commercial application. Recent advances in foundation models, including large language and multimodal models, are reshaping expectations around engagement. Fans increasingly expect interactive, personalized experiences that move beyond static dashboards and one-way content. However, general-purpose foundation models often struggle in sport due to limited access to authoritative sports data, a lack of domain-specific knowledge, and the need for complex multi-step workflows that combine retrieval, reasoning, and visual understanding. This talk explores how Opta data and AI are being combined to address these challenges. It highlights practical applications in fan engagement, demonstrates how sports data can power more conversational and interactive experiences, and argues that sport represents a compelling vertical AI opportunity. Success in this domain will depend on the combination of differentiated data, deep domain expertise, and Agentic AI systems capable of delivering value