As ESPN continues its transition into the digital age, Disney CEO Bob Iger said this week that the network is working on a version of SportsCenter that is customized to users’ sports allegiances.
This updated edition of the long-running sports news telecast would likely utilize artificial intelligence to feed fans a connected run of highlights, segments, and clips according to the teams they cheer for. “It should know I’m a Knicks fan,” Iger said Wednesday at a media conference in New York City, according to Variety. “We are actually working on that.”
A customizable, AI-powered SportsCenter is a logical evolution of how the ESPN app works today. Users select their favorite teams, leagues, and athletes, and ESPN sends push alerts, score updates, news, and analysis to their devices.
But an algorithmic SportsCenter?
That does seem harder to pull off. SportsCenter isn’t just a feed of related videos playing back to back. It is Scott Van Pelt, Elle Duncan or Kevin Neghandi welcoming viewers to a vast state-of-the-art studio, ESPN reporters beaming in from around the world, and the best of the best highlights. It is a brand.
The ability for viewers to filter out golf or soccer content they don’t want to see is a nice selling point, but how do you put a show together that way? There has to be a way to combine the excellent production quality ESPN viewers have come to expect on SportsCenter with a more personalized content mix, but Iger’s comments are just the tip of the iceberg.
Still, this does provide a window into ESPN’s vision for its direct-to-consumer product and various new bundles.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to imagine what SportsCenter would look like in a fully streaming world, and fewer people are tuning in live. But as part of a programmable lineup of content delivered directly to sports fans in the format they want, that kind of SportsCenter makes more sense.
[Variety]
