Why ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro thinks AI Will Help Push the Fan Experience Forward By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director Monday, December 2, 2024 - 2:11 pm
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The ESPN Edge conference has become an annual touchstone for ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro to sit down and discuss some of the pressing technology issues facing not only ESPN but the industry at large. This year's event was no exception as he sat down with Mark L. Walker, ESPN's Executive Vice President, ESPN BET, Business Development and Sports Innovation for a discussion. Walker himself is a key leader when it comes to ESPN's technology initiatives and the following is an edited transcript of their conversation last month.
Walker: The one topic on everyone's lips is AI and you've taken a very interesting position which is that it is a disruptive technology, but you don't think it's this awful disruptor that everybody's predicting it might be. And I think that's an interesting take which I'd love for our friends and partners hear more about.
ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro sat down with Mark L. Walker, ESPN's Executive Vice President, ESPN BET, Business Development and Sports Innovation, to discuss current trends and strategies driving ESPN's future at the ESPN Edge conference last month.
Pitaro: There are ways for us as an enterprise to really benefit from AI. And yes, it is disruptive, but I see it as disruptive in a good way as it can push the sports fan experience forward. I do not see AI displacing jobs.
And I think the best example is our partnership with WSC Sport with whom we have this partnership where we're able to create highlights at scale. And what I mean by that is highlights that we would not be able to present to the sports fan around more niche sports because it's not really a positive ROI for us to go out and hire a bunch more people to clip these highlights.
So, if you look at our offering now, we have many more highlights because of AI game recaps. We can't summarize every single game because it's not possible manually but through technology we can use text to audio. And I talk a lot about this, but I commute to Bristol, and I want to be able to hear a lot of our long form storytelling that is generated on espn.com. And so, I want to be able to click play and listen to one of our enterprise stories.
And then there is also audio to text and closed captioning which is a positive for the sports fan as well as humanity.
The last thing I'd say on AI is that transparency is really important, and we want to make sure that we're explaining to the sports fan what we're doing. We want to make sure our employees understand what we're doing, how we're handling artificial intelligence. And we're doing that today, but we will make sure as we move forward that we maintain our human core, if that makes sense.
Walker: I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense because one thing you talk about is putting the sports fan at the center of what we're doing and serving the sports fan anytime, anywhere. And everything you describe is about making a better experience for sports fans.
Pitaro: Correct. And I think the best example of that is a personalized SportsCenter. SportsCenter is our jewel and a big part of our DNA. And when I say SportsCenter, meaning the traditional version of SportsCenter, and you combine the creative with the technology we can serve up a SportsCenter for me which would mean Knicks, Yankees, Rangers, Notre Dame. That's what I want first and to be able to do that improves the sports experience for our fans. That to me is the promise of AI.
Walker: That's a really good bridge over to kind of the next thing that we wanted to talk about which is we're launching a direct-to-consumer product that's code-named flagship in 2025. How is innovation driving that and how is innovation going to really differentiate and drive this product home?
Pitaro: Early next fall is when we intend to launch flagship as a direct-to-consumer service. And the general premise here is that we're not just going to make our content, our networks, our games, our studio programming available direct to consumer. We are going to do so with significant product enhancements, and we have a team of world-class engineers and product people that are working on this every single day.
This is one of my passion areas and I don't think I've ever been more excited about anything that I've been attached to or worked on. I'm a sports fan and everything I'm seeing from the team is resonating with me as a sports fan. For example, I play fantasy. So, if I'm watching my next football game I want to see that connective tissue. If I've placed a bet on Saquon Barkley and the Eagles are playing, I want to see that betting module next to the live game feed. Or I may want to buy Patrick Mahomes' jersey when the Chiefs are playing. So, we're going to be offering, and those are just a few examples, many product enhancements. But the macro point is more interactivity, more personalization, more customization.
And we have been prioritizing digital and personalization at ESPN for decades long before me and you can go [to ESPN.com] and favorite a league, a team, a player. But I'll tell you where I struggle. My second favorite team in baseball is whoever's playing the Boston Red Sox [because I am a Yankees fan]. And personalization to me is being able to see the Red Sox score right after the Yankees score. But today, the only way I can do that is by favoriting or liking the Red Sox, which I refuse to do. So, we do have to figure that part as part of personalization is where I can get the Red Sox score without telling ESPN that it's one of my favorite teams.
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