​​​​How AI is Changing Sports: When Your Smartwatch Knows More Than Your Coach

By Deb Schneider

Imagine that your smartwatch negotiates your salary. It is not too far in the future!

If you think about technology in sports, you might picture slow-motion replays or maybe those yellow first-down lines in football broadcasts (which are actually quite complex, and covered by an intricate patent). But the real tech revolution in sports right now is being powered by artificial intelligence that uses data from wearable sensors and crunches numbers faster than any coach with a clipboard.

Most athletes, and even many weekend warriors, use tiny sensors when practicing, playing, and even sleeping. These devices track everything your body does, from heart rate to body movement, to recovery, to sleep. The data is fed into AI models that report back to the wearer, and in the case of professional and collegiate athletes, to their coaches. Recruiting scouts are using this AI data to help evaluate players. Instead of the scout’s “gut feeling” or years of experience in recruiting, players are now being evaluated on their data.

Adding wearable data to video footage that can be quickly analyzed by AI to measure reaction speed, efficiency under pressure, and playing decisions can be a game-changer. A player who may look “elite” might be graded as average by the data, or vice versa. The difference between average and elite may come down to who has the better data.

An AI model can identify patterns that humans would never notice. A coach might tell a player to rest, not because something is visibly wrong, but because the data predicts something will be wrong soon. Some teams now talk about “preventing injuries before they happen,” which sounds like science fiction, but is increasingly real.

For an athlete, their bodies are both their workplace and their livelihood. This is where the law and sports intersect, and where traditional privacy law falls short, when we consider who owns the biometric data collected by these wearables. Athletes may consent to being tracked, but that consent is complicated.

A college athlete may worry that refusing to wear a device could cost them playing time or scholarship standing. A professional athlete may have limited leverage unless their union has specifically negotiated data rights.

Current collective bargaining agreements in professional leagues were negotiated and signed years ago, long before the surge in AI analytics and advanced wearables. As a result, each league has developed its own set of rules, including when wearables are permitted, who controls the data, and when that data is shared.

The stakes become large when data moves from training to contract negotiations. If an algorithm suggests a player’s hamstring is at risk of future injury, should that affect their salary today? Should a team be allowed to cut a player because data predicts, but does not prove, future injury risk? These scenarios are not hypothetical. They are already shaping draft boards and contract valuations. Only the NFL and NBA have explicitly recognized the danger of the data and have strictly prohibited the use of wearable-generated data in player contract negotiations. The other leagues do not have such explicit language.

In some leagues, a franchise may know more about a player’s health trends than the player themself. And in contract negotiations, that information can become incredibly powerful. Imagine being told your future value is lower because you might get injured next season, according to an algorithm that has analyzed the data from your smartwatch? What rights and obligations should the league or franchise have to safeguard and share this data? One might think that players should have a right to data generated by their own bodies. And certainly with the amount of money involved in sports betting ($148 billion in 2024 in the US alone), this type of data might easily become a target for hackers. This area of technology is quickly evolving, but will the law be able to keep up?

Deb Schneider is Of Counsel at Fishman Stewart. A serial entrepreneur, former educator, and trusted advisor at the intersection of sports, IP, and innovation. As the legal and commercial framework of college sports evolves, Deb leads Fishman Stewart at the forefront of complex IP and sports law issues. Contact Deb for media inquiries, interview requests, or questions about workshops and licensing.