The era of subjectivity in scoring sports performances might be coming to an end. Artificial intelligence (AI) as an action sports judging system is making its debut at the 2025 Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado.
The bold trial will be tested unofficially in the snowboard SuperPipe competitions using an AI tool developed in partnership with Google Cloud.
While human judges will continue to make the official decisions, the AI system will offer scores and analysis visible to commentators and TV audiences.
The interface uses video cameras to capture each athlete's run and analyzes every flip, spin, and landing in detail, generating a score based on a sophisticated understanding of snowboarding techniques.
Jeremy Bloom, the CEO of X Games and a former professional athlete, called the AI system a potential "superpower" for judges.
"Sometimes humans make mistakes, and that's not to say the AI won't too, especially in its early form, but our goal is to give this tool to judges so they can use it in their booth," Bloom told The New York Times.
How AI Works in Snowboarding
The AI system is trained on countless hours of snowboarding data, allowing it to precisely identify tricks, landings, and minor details like hand drags.
Bloom explained that the technology is highly accurate and can break down complex body movements that may happen too quickly for the human eye to catch.
"It knows what a good landing looks like and what an okay landing looks like. And it knows with amazing precision," Bloom also told USA Today.
Beyond scoring, the AI tool can serve as a resource for commentators by delivering detailed insights into performances and helping athletes improve and perform their skills.
"When I was an athlete, I couldn't talk to judges, so it was hard to know what they valued most," added Bloom.
"Now, this tool can analyze every run ever done and offer a deeper understanding of what scores higher."
Tennis, Soccer, and Gymnastics Already Embrace Automation
AI has been slowly integrating into sports.
In tennis, electronic line judges have become standard, and soccer uses semi-automated technology (VAR) to make offside calls.
Gymnastics also introduced AI as a backup tool - the Judging Support System (JSS) developed by Fujitsu - for human judges during its 2023 World Championships.
The International Olympic Committee has noted that AI could help reduce human bias and improve real-time analysis in judged sports.
However, AI is not expected to replace human judges entirely.
"I don't think AI will ever fully replace humans, but it can add more objectivity to subjective sports," stressed Bloom.
A Glimpse Into the Future
During the X Games, the AI system's scores and analysis will appear on broadcasts of the men's and women's snowboard SuperPipe finals.
The technology is part of a larger effort by X Games organizers to use advanced tools to enhance fan experiences.
"What the viewer will see is a glimpse into the future, where AI can complement sports in new ways," concludes Jeremy Bloom.
The system will also be tested in future X Games events, including the 2025 Summer X Games in Sacramento and beyond.
Could Skateboarding and Surfing Competitions Adopt AI?
The introduction of AI-based judging systems at the X Games could open doors for similar applications in other judged sports, such as professional skateboarding and surfing.
Both sports share challenges in scoring that AI could help address, including high-speed action, complex tricks, amplitude of maneuvers and body movements, and subjective evaluations.
For instance, in 2011, the ASP World Tour trialed a GPS-based device for monitoring surfers' speed.
In 2020, the Nazaré Tow Surfing Challenge allowed surfers to use a gadget developed by the Galicia Institute of Technology that measured speed, distance ridden, the impact of a wipeout, G-force, and other variables in real time.
Data collected could then be used during the live broadcast replays to increase the entertainment factor for spectators watching online.
In competitive skateboarding, runs often feature rapid sequences of tricks that can be difficult to judge immediately.
AI could assist by breaking down each movement frame by frame, identifying technical details like the height of an ollie, the angle of a flip, or a grind's precision and exact length.
Additionally, the AI could provide consistent scoring for creativity and difficulty, areas where human judges sometimes vary.
These more subjective variables may take longer or actually be impossible to provide with a maximum degree of fairness.
However, by analyzing previous competitions, the system could create a database of top-tier performances, giving athletes and judges clearer benchmarks for scoring.
Surfing poses a different challenge in its dynamic and unpredictable oceanic environment.
Wave size, speed, and maneuver execution all factor into scores, but these elements can be hard to quantify objectively.
AI could analyze video footage to measure the height of aerials, the depth of barrels, and the speed or fluidity of turns.
Furthermore, it could help standardize how conditions like wave quality or wave selection affect scores, ensuring a fairer comparison across heats.
Yet, the unpredictability and randomness regarding the riding conditions will be drastically mitigated in surf pool events, where the focus is not on wave selection but on athletic performance.
More Than a Judging System
Ultimately, the idea is that in any sport where the eye can't keep up with the action, AI can offer a new level of precision and objectivity.
The use of these non-human eyes and brains in competitive skateboarding and surfing could not only improve the judging process but also enhance fan engagement.
On-screen graphics could show AI-generated breakdowns of tricks and maneuvers, giving audiences a deeper appreciation of athletes' skills.
For athletes, AI insights could become a training tool, offering detailed feedback to refine and fine-tune their performances.
All these ideas are still speculative, though.
But the trial at the X Games suggests a future where automation plays an increasingly important role in subjectively judged sports, pushing the quality of transparency and fairness up.
Let's not forget that Microsoft and USA Surfing have already teamed up on a project to get artificial intelligence to analyze the surfer's movements and figure out what was well and could be improved.
Words by Luís MP | Founder of SurferToday.com
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