AI Sports Tech Puts Teams and Firms in Control

At the Brooklyn Nets’ 2026-27 home opener, fans could see AI-built, near-3D replays only on the arena jumbotron and the team’s social-media channels. The system turns 64 camera angles into clips of dunks, blocks and steals, although a separate image caption described 68 cameras. Corporate and sports institutions own and operate the technology behind this new view of the game; fans still access it through their channels.

Angela Pennyfeather, a longtime attendee of Nets home openers who was born and raised in Bed Stuy, said, “It was pretty phenomenal. We've never seen anything like it.” Her teenage son was impressed, too, she said, “and he's always trying to keep it cool.” Pennyfeather called the finished replay “kind of like art.”

Who Controls the Replay

Alibaba and the Nets collaborated on the system. Cameras near suite level around the arena send footage from each angle to the cloud, where an AI model built by Alibaba assembles a replay in 15 to 20 seconds. Nets owner Joe Tsai is Alibaba Group's co-founder and chairman, putting the team’s owner at the center of both sides of the partnership.

Keia Cole, Chief Digital Officer of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (BSE), the parent company that owns the Nets, described the aim as building “the next generation of Brooklyn Nets fans.” She called the system “a tool built to wow them” and said basketball moves quickly, making the mechanics and complexity of plays hard to understand. The replay, she said, offers “a nuanced way to slow down the game.”

For now, fans can’t choose the camera angle or control the replay. Nets fans see it only on the jumbotron or the team’s social-media channels. The company says future possibilities include letting fans worldwide view games from unusual perspectives, such as beneath a basketball hoop or inside a baseball batter’s box, and edit their own replay packages.

More Data, More Institutional Uses

Toronto startup Peripheral is developing a system that uses 18 cameras to reconstruct games in three dimensions. Kelvin Cui and Mustafa Khan founded the company in 2024, and it joined the NBA's Launchpad incubator program the following year. The work culminated at the 2026 Summer League in Las Vegas, where Peripheral showed its product to league executives.

“We were able to show off our full videos for the first time. The Raptors [shared] some clips that went viral on X, fans really liked it, and the NBA invested,” Cui said. “So, yeah, it was sick.” An operator can use an Xbox controller to “fly” around the court or arena, lock onto a player and replay the game from that person’s perspective.

Peripheral’s cameras capture volumetric information and biomechanical data, including individual finger joints. Cui said teams could use that data to understand players’ physical tendencies and develop injury-prevention protocols. Coaches could show plays from the opposite side of the court, while the league could use the system to assist officiating. “The goal is to have all of these applications out this season,” he said. Peripheral was working with multiple NBA teams on permanent installations but couldn’t yet identify them.

Cui said the company eventually wants to put controllers in fans’ hands. “This is how we get younger audiences back into live sports — give them an interactive experience closer to what they’re used to in 2K,” he said. Alibaba had previously demonstrated its technology at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, with installations around 17 sports.

Aerospace Firms Build the Sleds

USA Bobsled announced agreements with four companies with strong Utah ties to develop next-generation two-man and four-man sleds: 47G, Albany Engineered Composites, Hexcel and Nammo Composite Solutions. Some of the technology involved also goes into planes, missiles and unmanned aircraft. Demonstration models were to begin testing that winter, but the team said it was unclear when the sleds would enter competition.

“It's about us taking lessons from the aerospace world and figuring out how we should be applying them to bobsled,” USA Bobsled CEO Aron McGuire said Wednesday as the agreements were announced in Salt Lake City. Albany Engineered Composites plans to manufacture composite cowlings for four-man sleds; Nammo will make carbon-fiber cowlings for two-man sleds; Hexcel was selected for its advanced-composite materials expertise; and 47G brought the parties together. Utah is scheduled to host the 2034 Salt Lake Winter Olympics.

The target: sleds able to withstand speeds regularly exceeding 80 mph on ice-covered tracks while shaving fractions of a second from race times. Kaysha Love, a two-time USA Bobsled Olympian and 2025 monobob world champion, said, “Every detail of the sled matters when you are pushing at the start and steering down the track. Knowing that some of the best engineers in aerospace are working on our equipment gives us confidence. We get to focus on what we do best while they help us go faster.”