OPENING REMARKS
(Video.)
MIKE TIRICO: Oh, hi, everyone. Mike Tirico with you from the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy. What a legendary month it's been for all of us at NBC. We had the Super Bowl on Sunday, the Winter Olympics over here underway. And now, of course, NBA All-Star Weekend.
I can't express how much fun it's been being back courtside, calling games. Great to have the NBA on NBC back and better than ever. I'd love to be in Los Angeles with all of you, especially there at the Tech Summit, because the NBA always has a surprise or two in store for this one.
I need to get back to our Olympic coverage, so, Adam, I'll leave it in your great hands.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Thank you, Mike, and thank you, everyone, and welcome to our 26th NBA All-Star Technology Summit.
As Mike mentioned, our All-Star Game is returning to NBC with a new U.S. vs. World format, building on this Olympic theme. What makes the Olympics so compelling isn't just the competition and incredible athletes, it's the world-class storytelling.
In the NBA, every game also tells a story. In fact, thousands of stories. Over the years, we've told stories about our players through traditional telecasts, shows, and social media.
Take Tyrese Maxey, a two-time All-Star from the 76ers. You probably didn't know that Tyrese is also a dog lover. He ran two dogs in November at the National Dog Show before a record audience on NBC of 33 million viewers. No doubt that makes him more relatable to the 45% of U.S. households that own dogs.
And who knew that Victor Wembanyama was one of 600 million people in the world who loves to play chess? This video of him in New York City generated 90 million views on social media in just the first week.
When fans see these stories, they make connections and create commonality with our players and teams. Later today, you'll hear from one of those fans who has a deep, lifelong connection to basketball, former President Barack Obama.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: You'll also hear a lot about AI, which promises to revolutionize almost every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Sports will be no different.
For many years at this Tech Summit, I said the holy grail for our telecast was replicating the courtside seat. But with these new technologies, that's too limiting. We can now develop hyper-personalized and hyper-localized broadcasts that reimagine the live viewing experience. For a global league like ours, that means we now have billions of storytellers.
Through AI, we can give them the tools to experience the game exactly the way they want it, a new superpower for fans. They will be able to watch games in any language, any dialect, any announcer's voice, any thematic approach: hardcore X's and O's, advanced analytics, a focus on a particular player, a casual or comedic commentary. The possibilities are endless.
Here's a technology that Amazon Prime is already testing for their broadcasts. Here you can watch any play from any angle, ultimately in real time. We also have an AI chatbot in early development that allows fans to better understand what's happening in real time on the floor.
But imagine if fans had a tool driven by AI that let them take live game action and create their own personalized telecast, again, in real time. And because we're at the YouTube Theater, here's a glimpse of the future from the world's most followed basketball YouTube creator. His videos have been viewed more than 10 billion times, making him Gen Z's top sports personality. Here's Jesser working with some of our newest AI tools.
(Video.)
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Ladies and gentlemen, Jesser.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: What's going on, everybody? Adam, thank you so much for having me.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Thank you. Jesser, so thank you for spending the last few days in our R&D lab here in L.A. So, how's it going?
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: It's going really amazing. And I literally got to check out this tech for a full NBA game. And the craziest part, it's literally in real time. And, Adam, in that video, we didn't even show my favorite part.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: You want to show it today?
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Yeah, I'd love to do a demo.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: All right, let's get into it.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Down for that? So I'm thinking for the demo, I chose the Mavericks-Hornets game because, Adam, you're a Duke guy.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: True.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: We had the two Duke rookies battling it out in this game. All right, should we go to my favorite mode?
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Go, go.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: All right, let's turn on POV mode. So as you can see --
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: That's point of view?
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Yes, point of view.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Yes, yes, yes.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: So we are literally looking at what Cooper Flagg is seeing right now. See, I think LaMelo just scored on him.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Cooper Flagg had 49 points in that game, the most ever for a teenager. Kon, I think he's 20. He's a little bit older. He had 34 points. He had eight threes. I think Kon won the game too, but don't...
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Yeah, it was a battle. Why don't we -- you know, I think we should see Kon's POV, but is it okay, can we put my cats back on the court?
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Sure, show them what you can do.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Let's go. Put my cats back on the court, and then let's go to Kon's POV right now.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: So this is all what we're going to be able to do in real time during a game. You're going to be able to look at the game, as I said, from any angle. You can change the court, you can --
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Yeah, and eventually it'll be indistinguishable.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Where are your cats?
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: They're by the baseline logo. See, that's (indiscernible) right there. But watching this, seeing Kon --
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: There's your cats, I saw.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: -- seeing Cooper, like I've watched a bunch of their games through this, and they'd be stealing all of my moves.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Yeah?
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Genuinely.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Nah.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Come on. No? Oh, my God. Are you gonna steal my moves? Ladies and gentlemen. What up? Good to see you.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: What's up, man? Great to have you here. Cooper Flagg. Great to see you guys.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Yeah, so POV mode, we got to ask, like, you're seeing it, is it accurate?
COOPER FLAGG: I think so. Yeah, it's crazy, honestly, what we just saw. Like, it's very accurate.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Kon, what do you think?
KON KNUEPPEL: Yeah, I mean, I think the hand movements, even the minute details of that. But I'm really thinking that would be cool to use for film, see your decision-making from your POV in the game and not just from, like, another point of view.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: Yeah, and there's going to be so many next-generation stats that don't exist that will exist from this technology.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: First of all, I'm sorry about your injury. I know you're going to be out tonight. We're going to miss you out there.
Kon, you're going to be in the Rising Stars game tonight. I also know you've got a Three-Point competition coming up. Good luck in that.
KON KNUEPPEL: I appreciate it.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Thanks for doing that.
So let me ask you guys one question. So you grew up playing video games. You grew up hooping. So you've seen some of this technology that Jesser showed. As a fan, what do you think you'd want to see? There's a lot of AI people here, they're working on new innovations. How would you want to look at a game going forward?
COOPER FLAGG: Yeah, I mean, I kind of want to see it how we see it. And looking at it through, like, the POV like that, like it's such a real perspective of the game. And just having the way that it's -- honestly, I was watching it, I was like it looked like it was through my eyes. So just having that type of view, that's just what I would want people to see.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: What about you, Kon?
KON KNUEPPEL: Yeah, I think it's cool for a fan to kind of get that experience, maybe see why a player made the decision he made, see what he was seeing on the court. And like I mentioned, like personally, that could be -- I think that could be a good thing for film use in future years.
JESSE "JESSER" RIEDEL: It's crazy how, like, early days this is, because right now, obviously, it looks kind of like stick figures on there, but imagine when it's, like, indistinguishable. And then those are the angles we can watch the game from? That's going to be insane.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Yeah. So, first of all, thank you both for being here. Recover soon. Good luck this weekend.
And what we're going to be talking about today -- hey, Ahmad, where did you come from? What we're going to be talking about is this is just scratching the surface. I mean, the notion what AI is going to allow us, as I said, that billions of storytellers, now you're going to be able to personalize games in any way you want. It's going to completely transform what our broadcasts look like going forward.
AHMAD RASHAD: This is unbelievable. This is un, unbelievable. First of all, I've never seen three Dukies together at the same time, which I do see now. But, man, this is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER ADAM SILVER: Well, all right. Well, the show's all yours. Thank you, guys. Thank you for being here.
(Applause.)
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports