GAINOR SPORTS: AI FOR SPONSORSHIPS

VIRTUAL TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT OFFERINGS

AI FOR SPONSORSHIPS: UNLOCKING NEW REVENUE, EFFICIENCIES & COMPETITIVE EDGE

Gainor Sports has introduced a new 60-minute AI Training & Development session to help teams and leagues integrate AI across every stage of the sponsorship lifecycle.

From prospecting new partners to strategy, research ideation and creative development, this focused session delivers tactical ways to use AI to streamline processes, generate fresh ideas, and enhance partner value in a fast-moving sponsorship landscape.

For more information, please contact Brian Gainor at brian@gainorsports.com.

SPORTS BUSINESS + AI

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAMS: ORGANIZATIONAL AI INTEGRATION BEST PRACTICES

Portland Trail Blazers

The Portland Trail Blazers have taken a proactive, organization-wide approach to AI integration. In 2024, they launched internal AI boot camps for 25 front office leaders to answer a key question, “How do we operationalize AI effectively across the business?”

The Trail Blazers took a series of deliberate steps to drive organizational wide AI adoption, including:

Conducting “Lunch & Launch sessions, setting out to identify and aggregate team-wide challenges, inefficiencies and opportunities that AI could help address
- Asking for 10-20 pain points per department and assigning a “co-pilot” from each department to help build out an AI solution
- Using filters to determine which GPT-based tools to prioritize creating (long-term value, fan experience/revenue impact, adoption likelihood)
Forming a 35-member cross-functional AI committee
Rolling out a 6-month AI enablement program featuring AI trainings, Lunch & Learns, Leadership-led innovation conversations
Partnered with AI-Media’s LEXI and Encoder Pro to automate broadcast captioning, achieving up to 98% accuracy while reducing costs
Created custom GPT’s, including:
- David Detractor” and “Kelly Kindness” GPTs - Focused on streamlining post-event survey analysis (quantitative and qualitative feedback) and automating tailored fan responses based on NPS scores - this GPT saved 40+ hours/month, improved customer service and generated incremental revenue by servicing warm leads
- “Betty Budget” GPT - Enabled team members to query complex budget codes instead of navigating spreadsheets manually
- “Billy Brand” GPT - Automated responses to branding and style guide questions, history, reducing creative revision cycles from 6-7 rounds to 2-3 and expediting campaign execution and partner content delivery

Relevant Links:

An outdoor view of a large modern building with a glass exterior, signage for 'tipitina's', 'mood center', and a prominent red sign spelling 'traffic' with smaller text 'runs deep' underneath.

Additional Notables

Boston Celtics - The NBA Stepped Up Its Social Media Game with AI. So Can You.

Boston Red Sox - How AI is Powering the Red Sox On the Field & Across Operations

Chip Ganassi Racing - Why OpenAI is Partnering with a Indy 500-Winning Race Team

Dallas Mavericks - Dallas Mavericks “Mavs AI” Chat Bot

Golden State Warriors - Warriors Empower Team Players with GenAI

Hendrick Motorsports - How Hendrick is Using AI in Motorsports to Find Any Competitive Advantage

IOC - Olympic AI Agenda

LaLiga - LaLiga Leads AI Evolution with Global Outreach

Manchester City - City an Puma Launch Groundbreaking AI Football Kit Design

MLB - How MLB is Using AI, Streaming and Tech to Shape the Fan Experience

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) - MLSE & AWS Team Up to Transform Experiences for Fans

NBA - Google Cloud Partners to Bring AI to the NBA

NFL - Microsoft’s New NFL Deal Boosts AI Capabilities, NFL Teams Use AI for Coaching, Recruiting & Medical

Oakland Ballers - The Ballers Will Be the First Professional Sports Team Managed by AI

Premier League - Microsoft + Premier League Launch AI-Powered Digital Experience

Roland-Garros - Roland-Garros and Infosys Serve Up AI-Powered Fan Experiences

San Jose Sharks - How the Sharks Use of SAP’s CX Solutions Led to STM Program Growth

Tampa Bay Buccaneers - How AI is Improving the Game-Day Experience for NFL Fans

UFC - How UFC is Employing AI to Elevate the Fan Experience & Give Workers a Leg Up on the Competition

US Open - US Open Serves AI Add-Ons for Tennis Matches

Women’s Rugby World Cup - How Capgemini Brings Real-Time, AI-Driven Match Insights to the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

AI Industry Reports & Podcasts

Google Cloud: The ROI of AI in 2025

GPT-5 Released: 7 Big Trends

Chat GPT-5: Everything You Need to Know (Podcast)

2025: The State of Consumer AI (Menlo)

BOND - AI Trends & Intelligence Report

McKinsey: Artificial Intelligence Insights

McKinsey: How Operations Leaders Are Pulling Ahead Using AI

The AI Dail Brief (Daily Podcast)

San Antonio Spurs

The San Antonio Spurs have emerged as a league-leading example of how professional sports teams can embed AI as a core organizational tool. Through a groundbreaking internal partnership with OpenAI, the Spurs launched a pilot program in 2024 aimed at building an AI-ready culture across 150+ employees. In just a few months, staff AI fluency jumped from 14% to over 85%, with 94% reporting greater confidence using AI in their daily work. The team rolled out custom learning modules, built internal GPTs, and created “Spurs Legacy”—a GPT that transcribes and contextualizes the franchise’s 50th anniversary content for use in fan engagement and internal knowledge-sharing.

Spurs employees across departments—from partnerships to people ops—are now building and using GPTs daily, driving measurable efficiencies and innovation, including:

Fan Voice GPT: Auto-summarizes post-game sentiment in minutes
Transformative Leadership GPT: Delivers personalized leadership training content
Partnership Insights GPT: Translates sponsorship data into actionable narratives for partners
ChatGPT Enterprise: Saving 1,800+ work hours per month, enabling staff to focus on creativity, storytelling, and global fan engagement

The Spurs' early investments in GenAI —dating back to 2018 with tools like Conversica and Satisfi Labs—have since expanded to partnerships with UTSA and the U.S. Air Force, making them a model for how AI can transform both operations and culture in professional sports.

Relevant Links:

San Antonio Spurs x Open AI partner on new organizational solutions.

Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cleveland Cavaliers set out to bring the future of work to life by empowering their team with AI tools that accelerate learning, improve efficiency, and foster innovation. With limited internal resources, their previous chatbot solution lacked the scalability, flexibility, and accuracy needed to truly transform operations. That’s why the Cavs turned to Perplexity Enterprise Pro — a secure, AI-powered search engine that enables staff across departments to find critical answers, analyze documents, and generate insights in seconds.

Now used by over 15 departments, Perplexity has helped the Cavaliers reduce time spent on research, improve cross-team communication, and enhance the value of strategic work. Whether it’s writing personalized partnership outreach, translating complex data for stakeholders, or interpreting sustainability reports, the tool empowers team members to do more — faster. By closing knowledge gaps and streamlining repetitive tasks, Perplexity is reshaping how the Cavs work, learn, and lead. The Cavs’ AI adoption & utilization highlights include:

Relevant Links:

Wimbledon

Wimbledon continues to set the pace for innovation in global sports by embracing AI across nearly every corner of its operations. Partnering with IBM, the tournament introduced cutting-edge AI features like Match Insights with Watson and AI-generated commentary to elevate the fan experience—giving global audiences real-time win probabilities, player analysis, and match predictions. These features allow even casual fans to better understand the nuances of elite-level tennis.

Beyond the match court, AI is shaping how Wimbledon interacts with audiences. In 2024, a hyperrealistic AI influencer named Mia Zelu stunned the internet after her digitally generated photos at Centre Court went viral—highlighting Wimbledon’s experimentation with storytelling and digital identity. The tournament is also using AI to power its automated highlights, content curation, and virtual assistant tools, ensuring fans receive personalized, dynamic coverage across all platforms. Highlights include: