Top o’ the morning to you, as my SBJ colleague Joe Lemire says during his fill-in work for the Morning Buzzcast.
And that leads us right into our first Power Up story: Lemire breaks down the capabilities of AI podcasting tech provider Vokol, which replicated his voice to produce a Buzzcast practice run. My verdict? I prefer my human teammate’s wry tone more. — Ethan Joyce
In today’s edition of Power Up:
- Sandbox Series: test driving AI podcast capabilities from Vokol
- Paciolan getting an internal AI lift
- Braves discussing direct-to-distributor TV model that may include Hawks, Grizzlies and Predators
Top o’ the morning to you (and me): Buzzcasting with my voice clone
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The SBJ Tech Sandbox series is where we share our experiences testing products, gear, solutions and more in the sports tech space.
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Is that really how I sound?
I don’t even recall how it started, but for most of my tenure as a backup Morning Buzzcast host, I’ve greeted listeners with a hearty “top o’ the morning to you.” Call it a wink to my Irish roots, but a few regulars in the audience commented that they liked it, so it has remained.
I’ve always been allergic to rewatching or re-listening to my video and audio recordings — ugh, how cringe — but now hearing an AI clone of my voice deliver the line really seems to formalize the catchphrase. Good or bad, it seems to have stuck.
This was all part of a trial provided by Vokol, the AI-powered sports audio startup whose products include this automation tool and a new feature enabling fans to create their own personalized podcasts. Sports properties and media companies can create with speed and scale while serving a variety of fan interests with the same familiar voice.
While preparing my script for a Morning Buzzcast earlier this month, I used Vokol’s tools in parallel to create an alternate reality version of SBJ’s popular daily podcast.
The verdict? You be the judge.
SBJ
Vokol
Well, my digital twin was certainly more succinct, clocking in 3 minutes, 51 seconds compared to the 8 minutes, 45 seconds of the original version.
The user experience in Vokol (née Staked AI) is remarkably intuitive and streamlined on the backend, with several options of content parameters. I selected “recap” instead of preview, debate, list, explainer or a custom version listed as “other.”
The perspective and personality of the voice could be varied, too — everything from “stats maven” and “hot take artist” to “historical authority” and “fantasy sports coach.” I selected “beat reporter.”
The team at Vokol took some of my prior Buzzcasts as a model for my voice, and then I had the freedom to guide the AI’s content. I could enter standard prompts and let AI scour the internet, or I could input reference links as trusted sources. (There’s a really great and comprehensive website for sports business news. It’s called SportsBusinessJournal.com. Check it out.) The text of each podcast carries a necessary warning: “⚠️ Always check for factual accuracy! ⚠️”
My digital voice sounded more natural than I expected, and in the auto-generated script, there are stage notes with a number of bracketed adverbs explaining the tone of each section. Among the ones I saw were confidently, thoughtfully, analytically, reflectively and excitedly.
Before producing the full automated podcast that you can hear, I did some preliminary testing to get a handle on how it worked. In one early iteration, the Vokolized version of myself had a nice little turn of phrase, discussing the Baltimore stadium project as having “the backing of both political power and basketball royalty.”
Also helpful is that Vokol has an extensive sports database of proper noun pronunciations. One of my listeners, who insists he’s my biggest fan, regularly reminds me of the time I butchered Rory McIlroy’s name on a Buzzcast. (Hi, Rob.)
In the Vokol podcast, my alter ego asked poignant and pertinent question regarding the Ukrainian skeleton athlete, “This decision highlights the ongoing tension between athlete expression and institutional control. Where exactly should that line be drawn?”
My primary motivation in crafting Buzzcasts is to inform, with a secondary goal to entertain the audience. Maybe in time my aspirations for dry wit — in reality, my dad-joke sensibilities — will be adopted by an AI model. Hopefully it could soon begin with cracks at Austin Karp’s expense.
It of course can’t immediately replace my personal experiences and perspectives — and no one can remotely replicate Abe Madkour’s wealth of institutional knowledge and relationships — but it did a good job and, with all AI products, should only get better.
In the near future, Vokol will be able to ingest everything I’ve ever written to further develop my voice clone’s knowledge and perspective, said its CEO/co-founder, Mark Antal.
“There’s over 52 billion hours of sports audio listened in the US alone every year, and it’s a ridiculously effective marketing mechanism,” Antal said. “People listen for six times longer than they read, and the ROI for on-demand audio is 50% higher than paid search and social.”
And hopefully the Vokol podcast conclusion can serve as [urgent and emphatic] motivation for the industry:
“[urgently] The most forward-thinking executives are already planning how to leverage these trends... because waiting until they fully materialize means you’re already behind. [emphatically] Whether it’s AI integration or alternative sports formats, the early movers WILL define the next generation of sports business success stories!”
Paciolan getting an internal AI lift
Ticketer and technology provider Paciolan continues to work toward more artificial intelligence innovation for both its 170 college clients and their fans.
Company CTO Keith White said that features like dynamic pricing, chat interface (as more people shift from search engines to ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) and purchasing suggestions are some of the external-facing products that Paciolan is currently working on.
However, internally, AI has given a significant lift to a company, which has data dating back almost half a century.
Challenge issued
Paciolan president Brendan Lynch explained that six months ago, he asked all of Pac’s employees to engage AI more. That prompted curiosity led to some of the breakthrough work happening now.
“If I take a step back and from a strategic view: what are the things that are going to be most important going forward for us?” Lynch told SBJ. “And it’s that relationship with the clients. So we have a long list of things that clients want us to do on the revenue side and the technology side -- that list you never get all the way through historically.
“Now we’re starting to say, wow, can we actually increase the pace of development with all these increased tools?”
One of the major victories here, according to White, is using AI to help bridge some of Paciolan’s older tech with the current day. White said the company spent a couple of months training the models to understand its legacy tech and to migrate some older ticketing tech to fit into Paciolan’s modern ecosystem smoothly. It’s a process that would have been a “multi-year effort” according to White. That now will condense into less than 12 months, he said.
“The benefit there is that older technology was really hard for people (Paciolan employees) to understand,” White added. “The AI is actually going down in producing full product specs, full technical specs, full everything to understand it, and they now are using that to train and generate the code.”
Some other unlocks have come from using the commercial LLM providers:
- The dev team has a Claude AI integration with Figma (UI/UX design platform) to help engineers write code and build. “We’re seeing 10-to-20x multiples,” White said. ‘But the important thing is the quality of the output is actually better and fully tested and automated.”
- The finance team has a Claude embedded in Excel to help with modeling, statistical generation, and contract analysis. They’re also using Perplexity to search through their hundreds of contracts.
- Product marketing has received a boost from using Claude with content generation and its review process (breaking down meetings, documents, etc.). “The interesting thing there is they found that by speeding that [process] up, they actually found gaps or audiences they were missing,” White said. “So it wasn’t just getting the work done faster, but it was freeing them up to actually go do a better job at what they were doing.”
Braves discussing direct-to-distributor TV model that may include Hawks, Grizzlies and Predators
The Braves are exploring a direct-to-distributor model for their local broadcasts this season, multiple sources told SBJ, with the potential of unveiling a multi-team RSN that could include game telecasts next season for the Hawks and Grizzlies of the NBA and Predators of the NHL.
The sources indicated the Braves are in talks on distribution deals with Comcast, Charter and DIRECTV and possibly with virtual MVPDs such as YouTube TV and Hulu. In the near term, the team is partnering with Gray Media to broadcast 15 spring training games across 26 Southern markets, including Atlanta’s Peachtree TV, but is ideating an altogether different blueprint for the regular season.
As for the other three franchises, Predators CMO Bill Wickett said the Predators have not spoken to the Braves about being part of the prospective network. The Hawks declined comment, while the Braves and Grizzlies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Currently, Hawks, Grizzlies and Predators games are being aired on Main Street Sports Group’s FanDuel Sports Networks -- although it is unclear for how long. Main Street will purportedly wind down its business in mid-April unless it receives 11th-hour financing, and sources said its creditors could force the company to liquidate before the end of this season. Regardless, the Hawks, Grizzlies and Predators will all need permanent broadcast homes beginning next season at the latest, and the Braves’ network is an emerging option.
Sources, however, said the Hawks are not guaranteed to align with the Braves and are in their own talks on a distribution deal with Gray Media and Peachtree TV. One reason could be that the Hawks, like the Grizzlies, have been asked by the NBA not to do long-term deals -- perhaps just one or two years in duration -- because the league is in talks to create a centralized streaming RSN by the 2027-28 season or perhaps earlier through either YouTube, Amazon, DAZN or others.
The Braves, with or without the other three teams, intend to launch their network in time for the regular season, the sources said, and have already begun hiring sales personnel.
Whether the Predators eventually engage with the Braves is unclear, although sources believe Predators owner Bill Haslam does reportedly have ties to the company that owns the Braves, Liberty Media.
Staff reporter Mike Mazzeo contributed to this report.
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