Nearly three years after the public launch of ChatGPT catalyzed a groundswell of generative artificial intelligence adoption, levels of AI maturity within the sports industry vary widely.
Where most organizational leaders agree, however, is that reconciling this transformative and constantly evolving technology is a core business priority, particularly in investigating ways it can streamline operations. And this emphasis comes from the top down.
“One of [our five biggest company objectives] is master AI to boost efficiency and impact,” X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom recently told Sports Business Journal. “That is a leg on the stool, it’s not a peripheral goal or an afterthought.”
Internal efficiency-focused AI use cases are not always flashy, nor directly revenue generating. They run the gamut of areas such as segmenting fan data, drafting communications and employee onboarding, and are increasingly tapping agentic workflows, a class of artificial intelligence that is more autonomous — meaning minimal or no human intervention — and layered in its decision making than large language models, and can act on behalf of users.
The empirical benefits of AI in these contexts remain theoretical in some cases, but tech leaders center their efforts on increasing productivity and freeing understaffed departments to focus on big picture priorities, rather than mundane daily tasks.
Everyone is different
Enamored with the potential impact of AI on the sports industry, Josh Walker, co-founder and CEO of data firm Sports Innovation Lab, earlier this year launched a sports-focused AI education program called AI Advantage. With two of four planned sessions completed, the program has assembled hundreds of industry professionals — split evenly among teams/leagues, brands/agencies and media/technology companies, in Walker’s estimation — to learn more about AI and investigate potential use cases through presentations and product demos.
The biggest trend he has noticed with how sports teams and leagues are adopting AI?
“There is no pattern,” Walker said. “It would make perfect sense for the leagues to centralize the services that they are building for AI and roll it out to the teams. The teams never wait for that. You have some enterprising data science team or some enterprising CTO at the team level — they’re going to try stuff faster than the leagues do.”
Professional basketball is a hotbed of such enterprising teams.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, according to Michael Conley, the team’s executive vice president and chief information officer and president of Rock Entertainment Sports Network, began their generative AI discovery 3½ years ago. This started by consulting tech experts on the potential impact of generative AI and forming a cross-departmental generative AI committee. Eventually, they even transitioned one of their data quality analysts, Ben Levicki, into a full-time AI solutions architect, a first in the sports industry.
Ticket, food and beverage and retail data are among the areas the Cavaliers have deployed generative AI insights over the past 3 1/2 years. Cleveland Cavaliers
Since then, the Cavs have found success in initial use cases, such as building a semantic search function for the team’s basketball operations manual and a generative AI insights layer for their real-time ticket, food and beverage and retail data platform. At the direction of their C-suite, they are now focused on automating elements of their external communications, streamlining the processing of internal fan data and personalizing fan interaction.
During the NBA’s first Data Strategy Forum in July, the team presented the working prototype of a custom-built product that leverages a network of AI agents and fan information to distribute individualized emails to subscribers, down to details such as color scheme and emoji usage. After further testing using real fan profiles in September, the Cavs’ plan is for the product to be a part of email workflows by the start of the 2025-26 NBA season.
“Our goal is to be able to increase the amount of engagement that comes off a click action for those emails, to be able to eventually lead to better results down the funnel,” Conley said. “Is the messaging more effective, where we’re seeing greater open rates? Are we seeing greater engagement?”
Elsewhere, the Indiana Fever have seen potential in deploying AI agents (via Salesforce’s Agentforce platform) to comb through and segment internal fan data, which Joey Graziano, Pacers Sports & Entertainment executive vice president of strategy and new business ventures, said will help the team deliver personalized offers, content and experiences to fans and eventually be a resource for partners as well.
This is a massive potential use case in sports, given the multifaceted nature of fan data and ability for AI to scale the capabilities of understaffed data engineering departments.
“We are getting more sophisticated every day,” Graziano said. “And it’s not just the sophistication, it’s the speed and it’s the volume of segments you can create.”
The San Antonio Spurs, as a unique example, are using OpenAI to train models on previous years’ travel calendars (and other custom rules) to ingest the NBA’s overarching schedule and create deliverables such as team-specific master calendars, flight charters and email templates for outreach to preferred hotels and practice facilities on the road.
Human oversight is required, of course, but Charlie Kurian, the team’s director of business strategy and innovation, said tests have shown that first iterations of the deliverables can be produced in about 20 minutes, with the end-to-end, manual process of inputting information into Excel block-by-block distilled from three weeks to, at worst, one. He anticipates a version of the technology will aid the Spurs’ schedule-making as early as this season.
“This came directly from our CEO,” Kurian said. “[The message was], ‘Our people need to be focused on the higher ROI items. How do we use AI to deal with some of these tasks we’re bogged down with?’”
Culture matters
Kurian, at the head of the Spurs’ AI adoption effort, often says the first step of building a company’s “AI muscle” is enabling an AI-empowered workforce.
“We still believe we are very, very early on in the AI revolution. It’s hard to tell who is going to win, and what is going to stick,” Kurian said, comparing the current marketplace of competing AI platforms to the early days of social networking. “But what we can undoubtedly say is this technology will absolutely stick for the foreseeable future. [We’re] making sure we have invested in the most important thing we have — which is our people — so that, agnostic of what tool it comes to, we will still win.”
The team put this focus into action last year by piloting a generative AI learning program using ChatGPT, which has led to 90% of the 150 participants adopting the technology on a week-to-week basis, according to Kurian.
“We’ve crossed a threshold in people broadly using AI tools,” he said. “Now we’re doing discovery across every single department in our organization, understanding workflows, and, in the most positive way, blowing up the workflows to be able to integrate where AI can add value so that the real human beings can focus on the best use of their resources.”
Across its properties, TKO also is undertaking a hands-on approach to AI discovery and education, according to Alon Cohen, executive vice president of innovation. He and Melanie Hildebrandt, TKO and WME Group’s CIO, brought in an advanced prompt engineer for hands-on AI training with “natural early adopters” (e.g., TKO’s innovation and IT teams), and are now looking for other areas the technology can provide business value.
“The next version of almost every business application that we use has a heavy AI component to it,” Cohen said. “So, every team is identifying places where they think they can be successful, and when they go through their next upgrade cycle — or we consolidate to a new tool that’s also a good moment for an upgrade cycle — those tools become available.”
X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom said the property’s employees are encouraged to spend 10% of their working hours experimenting with AI tools that could increase productivity. AP Images
X Games encourages its staff to dedicate 10% of their working hours to experiment with AI tools that could boost productivity, Bloom said. One particularly effective use case has been in training a model on droves of internal data to be a resource for new hires on everything from finding sales deck templates to signing up for benefits.
“The company that I founded before [joining X Games], we had 600 employees, so we had really big and built-out functions across all these specific areas,” Bloom said, referring to the software startup Integrate. “[At] X Games, we have like 30 full-time employees. Necessity is the mother of invention for us.”
Reason for optimism
Across virtually all corporate industries, there is palpable and understandable anxiety about the potential for AI to replace certain job functions.
Bloom, for one, noted that the AI startup he recently launched, Owl AI — which offers AI-powered competition judging, data processing and broadcast commentary capabilities, including for X Games — is leveraging AI agents for market research, effectively substituting for an internal team or expensive third-party consulting firm.
However, he views live sports as not just insulated from automation, but potentially a benefactor of it.
“AI is going to disrupt so many jobs and so many industries,” Bloom said. “But I think the tailwind for us, and for any sport, is humans are still going to want to watch humans play football, and not want to watch robots play football. I think that is a huge tailwind for X Games, for the NFL, for Major League Baseball, basketball. I think it’s one of the big reasons we’re seeing so much private equity want to get into sports.”
The junior was a first-team All-Region 4D and first-team All-Northwestern District selection. Curtis had 181 kills and an area-best 78 blocks.
Caroline Eye, Central
The junior had an area-best 642 assists, 36 aces and 138 digs. Eye was a first-team All-Region 2B and first-team All-Bull Run District selection.
Lauren Foltz, Warren County
The senior was a first-team All-Northwestern District and a first-team All-Region 3B selection. Foltz had 134 kills and 32 aces.
Cami Golliday, Sherando
The junior had 30 aces and an area-best 337 digs. Golliday was a first-team All-Northwestern District and a second-team All-Region 4D selection.
Cheslea Stine, Strasburg
The junior was a first-team All-Bull Run District selection. Stine had 226 digs and 37 aces.
Hadley Witherow, Central
The senior had an area-best 278 kills, 44 aces and 170 digs. Witherow was a first-team All-Region 2B and a first-team All-Bull Run District selection.
Coach: Chuck Ashby, Sherando
Ashby led the Warriors to a 15-7 record in his first year back at the helm since 2013. Ashby was named the Class 4 Northwestern District Coach of the Year.
Ballenas Whalers senior girls volleyball side shines at B.C. event
Published 1:30 pm Wednesday, December 24, 2025
The Ballenas Whalers senior girls volleyball team capped off an incredible season with a strong showing at the AAA provincial championships in Vernon.
The team finished second in their pool before advancing to the crossover matches, ultimately securing 12th place in the province. Their journey to the provincials saw them rise from the initial qualifiers in Oceanside, through the North Islands, and then the Islands, consistently proving their resilience and determination.
For the second year in a row, Ballenas stands proud as the highest-ranked AAA Vancouver Island team in the province, a testament to their hard work, talent, and team spirit.
One of the highlights of the tournament was their faceoff with eventual tournament champions, Holy Cross. The Whalers took one set off the eventual champions and held their own in a competitive three-out-of-five crossover match, showcasing their ability to compete at the highest level.
Much of the team’s success can be attributed to the guidance and dedication of their coaching staff. With Rod Pick, Cassidy Kitchen and Sydney Gerke at the helm, the players were able to maximize their potential both on and off the court.
A special congratulations goes to the graduating seniors – Norah Hughes, Sophia Torgerson, Anna Parree, Cadie Denhaan and Cara McLaughlin – as they head off on to new adventures. Their contributions on and off the court have left a lasting legacy for Ballenas volleyball.
Hats off to all these young athletes for their remarkable season, their sportsmanship, and their continued commitment to excellence. The future looks bright for this talented group of volleyball stars!
WOODSTOCK — Hadley Witherow finished off her stellar high school volleyball career with her best season yet.
The Central senior led a young Falcons’ squad and played a major role in the team playing its best at the end of the year.
“I feel like in the beginning of the season, we definitely struggled,” Witherow said. “But towards the end, we finally had team chemistry and started to improve. I think beating Clarke (County) was definitely our upset. Just knowing that we can beat them made us improve and be ready for all the other teams.”
Witherow, The Northern Virginia Daily’s 2025 Volleyball Player of the Year, had an area-best 278 kills, a team-best 44 aces and a team-best 170 digs. She also finished second all-time in school history in kills at a program that’s enjoyed a lot of success.
For all of the great statistical accomplishments for Witherow this season, Central volleyball coach Ashlie Clar said Witherow’s leadership really stood out.
“Last year and this year she’s really had to step up into a leadership role, but even more so this year with younger players,” Clar said. “And she knew that. She was our best hitter and one of the best passers on the team. So she just knows how to play every position, and she works harder than anybody. She sets that line, like the sky is high for her, and sets that ceiling for the other girls. And they want to be like Hadley.”
Witherow said she had great leaders in her early years on the team, and she wanted to be a great leader for the younger players on this year’s team.
“I definitely had to step up a lot,” Witherow said. “Being able to help my teammates, it actually felt really good knowing that I was helping the team and helping them improve.”
Witherow said she first started playing volleyball when she was in eighth grade. She decided to give it a try and it’s worked out well for both Witherow and Central’s volleyball program.
She was brought up as a freshman on a strong team, which advanced to the regional semifinals.
As a sophomore, Witherow was one of the youngest players on a team that had a stellar year. Central lost only one match during the regular season, before falling in the Class 2 state semifinals.
“Winning the regional championship, that felt amazing just being able to do that,” Witherow said. “And I was so young I could look forward to the other years. It was great, and being the youngest player on the team, it was definitely nerve wracking. But again, they all helped me out and helped me to learn and grow and get better.”
Witherow became the team’s top hitter her junior year, finishing with 268 kills, 25 aces and 171 digs.
Witherow said she enjoys being a hitter and loves the feeling of getting a big hit.
“I like to show off my vertical, being able to jump because in the off season that’s all I would practice is being able to jump higher, show my strength,” Witherow said. “So being able to just slam the ball down, it just feels amazing.”
Witherow, who was a first-team All-Bull Run District and All-Region 2B selection this year, said her favorite kill of the season was one that helped her teammate reach a milestone. Witherow had a kill against Rappahannock County on Oct. 14, which gave Central junior setter Caroline Eye her 1,000th assist.
“I think my favorite was probably getting Caroline her 1,000th assist,” Witherow said. “I was helping a teammate and helping her improve and getting her to her goals. To be able to be the person to do that for her definitely feels amazing.”
Clar said Witherow has become an even smarter hitter over the last few years.
“She’s such a good hitter because she can hit anywhere, and her volleyball IQ is something that has really improved,” Clar said. “And she’ll look on the other side of the court, and sometimes she won’t even have to ask us, she’ll know where the open spot is, and she’ll hit there. And if she’s successful, she knows that she can go to that same spot again and again, or she can look over at us and ask for our opinion, and then she does it right away. She can tip, she can hit. She can play the ball anywhere on the court and be successful. So it’s really hard for the defense to get a good read on her, because she can go anywhere.”
One area where Witherow has really improved has been her back row play. She didn’t play in the back row her first two seasons, but has made a big impact there the last two years. Witherow also plays in the outfield for Central’s Class 2 state champion softball team, and she said her softball experience helps her on the back row for volleyball.
“I was definitely very nervous when I first started, but then I grew into it and I actually enjoy diving for balls,” Witherow said. “I think playing softball helped me out to prepare myself to dive in for every ball and make sure a ball doesn’t touch the ground.”
The Falcons got off to a slow start, but the highlight of the season came on Oct. 21. Central swept rival Clarke County, who were undefeated in the Bull Run District at the time.
“Being able to beat them in three, for a team that knocked us out the year before, it just felt so good knowing that we could actually do that. And that definitely helped us for future games after that,” Witherow said. “And we played as a team. We were all together, and that’s definitely when our team chemistry finally struck.”
Witherow plays both volleyball and softball at Central, and she said she loves both sports a lot. Witherow made the game-sealing catch in the Class 2 state finals last year, and also had the game-winning hit in the state semifinals.
“That’s tricky,” Witherow said when asked which sport is her favorite. “But definitely I would lean towards softball, because of winning that state championship. Nothing can take the feeling of winning the state championship, and especially getting the catch of the game. I don’t think anything can beat that.”
Witherow said she has not decided if she will play sports in college. She said she has offers, including one that would be willing to let her play both volleyball and softball. However, Witherow said she has not decided if she wants to play sports in college or just focus on education.
Witherow said playing volleyball at Central has meant a lot to her.
“I think being a part of the volleyball team has definitely made me a better person, because everyone was just so open to taking me in even though I had never played before,” Witherow said. “So just to be a part of the team just feels great in general. It definitely helped me with my leadership, my communication skills and just overall being a better person.”
Marlboro, MA — The WPI volleyball team placed seven student-athletes on the 2025 Fall NEWMAC Academic All-Conference team as announced by the league office.
Highlighting the list for WPI were seniors Victoria Escuer (Caracas, Venezuela) and Fiona Gillis (Manchester, NH) who both became three-time academic honorees.
Senior Alana Harris (Lowell, MA) and juniors Zeala VanDamme (San Diego, CA) and Kylie Welcher (Los Angeles, CA) each made their second appearances on the list.
Sophomores Preslie Jerebker (Denver, CO) and Zeala VanDamme (San Diego, CA) rounded out the honorees for WPI, both earning the distinction in their first year of eligibility.
Academic All-Conference honorees must have met the following criteria: earned a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5/4.0 scale or 4.35/5.0 scale after the 2025 spring semester, achieved second-year academic status at their institution, and been a member of the varsity team for the entire semester.
The Colorado volleyball team set out to prove something in 2025.
The Buffaloes did just that, getting picked to finish 10th in the Big 12 preseason coaches poll before finishing third and reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
As successful as the 2025 campaign was — CU’s 23 wins tied the fourth-most in program history — getting swept at Indiana in the NCAA Tournament left a bitter taste. And the Buffaloes are ready to return and prove themselves all over again.
Head coach Jesse Mahoney confirmed his program is not expecting to lose any of the array of juniors that helped power CU’s 23-9 campaign. The Buffs lose to graduation two starting seniors in setter Rian Finley and libero Sarah Morton, but CU is set to return essentially its entire offense as well as the starting middle blockers.
“As of my exit interviews, we don’t have anybody leaving the program,” Mahoney said. “Barring anything unexpected, but as of now we’re expecting the entire group back.
“It’s really exciting to have all your point-scorers return. There’s some questions in some ball-handling issues in terms of setting and libero, but we think we have those answers in-house right now. Unless you’re the last team standing, you never end where you want to be, so there’s still some things to play for. And I think our players, having tasted a little success, I think they’ll set their sights a little higher next year as well, and we’ll work towards that this spring.”
Highlighting the list of scheduled returnees is Ana Burilovic, a third-team AVCA All-American selection and CU’s first All-American honoree since 2018. Burilovic also earned first-team AVCA All-West Region honors and was a first-team All-Big 12 selection after leading the conference in points per set (5.47) and kills per set (4.71), ranking in the top 10 nationally in both categories.
Beyond Burilovic, the Buffs expect to return experience across the rotation. Middle blockers Maria Splawska and Cayla Payne were a formidable defensive duo, with Splawska leading the team with 1.21 blocks per set. Payne posted a hitting percentage of .338 and averaged 2.13 kills per set.
CU also is set to return its other two outside hitters in Sydney Jordan, who led the team in digs (2.41 per set) and was second in kills per set (2.42), and Lily Dwinell (1.70 kills per set).
Morton was a key part of the defense, but Peyton Neal is expected to return after playing a backup role at libero, and the Buffs also are expecting the return of libero Avery Bolles, who missed most of the 2025 season due to an injury.
“The biggest thing is the motivation piece, and I think they all have that,” Mahoney said. “Everyone talked about in our exit interviews what they want to accomplish next season. The work towards that is finding a way to squeeze out a little bit more from a physical standpoint, obviously from a skill standpoint, a mentality standpoint. This team, I think we can schedule a little bit tougher in the (nonconference). I think we understand if we want to take the next step — and our goal is to finish where we can host the first weekend (of the NCAA Tournament) — is understanding the steps it takes to get there and working towards it.”
The Wisconsin Badgers have been busy in the transfer portal, both with incoming and outgoing players. Among the group was freshman setter Addy Horner, who had been a key player for the Badgers this season when star Charlie Fuerbringer was out with an injury.
Horner elected to enter the transfer portal one day after Wisconsin’s loss to the Kentucky Wildcats in the NCAA Tournament, which made sense given that Fuerbringer still has two more years of college eligibility.
Well, Wisconsin added a setter to replace Horner’s spot, but that will be coming in the 2026 class, rather than via the transfer portal.
In a big move, the Badgers landed a commitment from the No. 3 setter in the 2026 class, Isabelle Hoppe, on Tuesday. Hoppe had been committed to Pitt, but requested a release from her National Letter of Intent after the Panthers landed Penn State transfer setter Izzy Starck in the portal.
Hoppe was ranked as the No. 21 overall player in PrepDig’s 2026 recruiting rankings, as well as the No. 3 setter. She’s the lone setter in Wisconsin’s 2026 class and now fills a big void left by Horner, while giving an extra year gap between her and Fuerbringer in eligibility.
Hoppe is the fifth incoming freshman in a loaded class for the Badgers, joining outside hitters Halle Thompson and Audrey Flanagan, and middle blockers Lynney Tarnow and Kymora Scott.
