The prominent topic of ‘the impact of online abuse on professional sports’ is to be examined by a Stats Perform webinar hosted on Thursday 7 October (2pm BST / 9am EST). 

This summer, the sportstech company partnered with data-ethics specialist Signify to launch an AI and data learning project aimed to detect and monitor online abuse aimed at sports’ make-up of athletes, organisations, sporting bodies, and further participants.

Group CEO Carl Mergele branded the partnership as a headline project for Stats Perform, who stated that sports integrity needed to be expanded to include online abuse, given its impact on competing athletes and organisations. 

The webinar, hosted by Stats Perform Senior Integrity Manager Nick Iliffe and Signify CEO Jonathan Hirshler, will examine the current status of social media abuse in sports and why stakeholders have had difficulties tackling the matter head-on. 

Addressing the complex challenges of detecting online harms, Stats Perform and Signify will detail why their partnership has focused on leveraging AI and Machine Learning to monitor, identify, and unmask abuse in real-time.

Stats Perform continues to call on all organisations representing fans, players, teams, leagues and governments to recognise and take action against online abuse as a threat to sports enjoyment and wider integrity.