Premier League Introduces New Offside Tech Powered by Genius Sports

Behind every great sports league today, there are a lot of complex systems and technologies working to keep the game fair and well-managed. The Premier League is no different and as new tech bursts onto the scene, they have now signed a deal for new offside AI systems for the 2024/25 season.

Supporting Industries with Tech

Like every other modern industry, the world’s leading sport leagues are supported by a lot of tech to improve camera quality, monitor match statistics and even help make rulings during the game. With AI continuing to improve, top-tier sports providers are now investing in AI-powered solutions that make their games better and more enjoyable.

Sports is arguably one of the last industries to receive a digital helping hand. Other industries like entertainment and computing pioneered the same camera or simulation tech that sports franchises use today, for example. Then there are also business models that exist wholly online, like services that stream TV shows or offer casino games through iGaming websites. That leads to businesses like the online casino at Paddy’s, which uses both digital effects and live-streaming tech to bring slots and other table games into users’ homes. These industries wouldn’t exist without supporting technology that enables them to create digital experiences and market them effectively. The same can’t be said for sports – most sports outdate the technology we have today. However, hundreds of millions of sports fans watch their favorite events every year thanks to supporting tech like live broadcasts and the ability to clip and share dramatic moments on social media.

So, in sports, tech has mostly been used to bolster the distribution and marketing apparatus surrounding them. That said, we have seen new AI-powered tech slowly come to prominence during matches of both American football and European football, on the field itself. The NFL is famously partnered with AWS to help build the “digital athlete” by using rigorous data and simulation tech to ensure player safety and better moment-to-moment sports coverage. Now, the Premier League is following a similar trajectory after signing a deal with Genius Sports.

Genius Sports & Digital Twins

You may not have heard of Genius Sports before, but they have been working with the PGA Tour, the NCAA, and NASCAR for years. They have also inked a deal with the NFL in 2021 and, like golf, college football, and racing, it clears them to gather live data and supply it to the world’s sportsbooks. This means they typically act as a go-between from the official sports event to number-crunching sportsbooks that speculate on the game, helping to ensure transparency off the field. That data leads to better-informed updates and betting tips like those found here at Feedinco.

Then, in September 2024, they signed a deal to bring semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) into the Premier League’s 2024/25 season. This comes thanks to GeniusIQ, one of their AI-powered services that’s capable of tracking player and ball movements in real-time. By looking at this data, it can create a ‘digital twin’ for the game as it plays out. Then, when an offside decision needs to be made, GeniusIQ reflects on its digital twin game to determine what the answer should be.

🤝 The biggest leagues demand the smartest tech.

We’re hugely proud to have been chosen by the @premierleague to deliver Semi-Automated Offside Technology.

Powered by our AI and data platform 𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒖𝒔𝑰𝑸, our system will minimise breaks in the game to improve the… pic.twitter.com/US3kcvUOo7

— Genius Sports (@GeniusSports) August 14, 2024

In the interest of full transparency, this system also generates a short description of the decision and why it was approved/rejected. That explanation is shown in the stadium and announced by pundits covering the action. Referees still maintain some power over rulings, so this new AI-powered tool isn’t the sole judge of future games. That’s important, as AI models can collapse and produce errors, as explained by Forbes.

Per the deal, GeniusIQ will be installed across every Premier League stadium across the world, to help minister every game. Shortly before announcing this new deal, Genius Sports also renewed its deal with the Premier League for data gathering and distribution. So, much like the other sports mentioned above, Genius Sports is responsible for sportsbook data until renegotiation in the 2028/29 season.

Speaking about the deal, Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke said: “This is a seismic moment for our business, as we bring our unique AI and data platform GeniusIQ to the world’s most watched league,” and would later call the technology “game-changing.” In reality, this kind of technology aims to make sports the best they can be, ensuring fairness and safety, and helping take bias and human error out of the equation.