AI Music in-Stadium: What Teams Need to Know Right Now
Artificial intelligence is dominating conversations in every industry right now, and sports entertainment is no different. In fact, if you're planning to be at the IDEA conference in Cincinnati this July, you will find that AI in game entertainment is one of the hottest topics on the agenda. Music is just one piece of that conversation, but it's a piece that deserves its own spotlight.
Let me be upfront: this is not a piece designed to tell you what to do. You run your show and you know your fans better than anyone. But as someone who has spent 25 years in the middle of the music and sports world, there are a few things worth laying out before any team hits play on AI-generated music.
If you've spent any time viewing AI-generated art, you already know the feeling. It looks almost right. It looks close. But something is missing, something that makes you stop and think, "that's not quite right." Roboticists call this the “uncanny valley”, that unsettling space where something appears almost human but triggers a subtle, instinctive discomfort. AI-generated music lives in the same neighborhood, only there is no widely accepted term for it yet. Call it the uncanny valley for the eardrums. When you hear it, something feels slightly off. The notes are there. The structure is there. But the soul isn't.
Popular music carries weight because it carries history. It carries the emotion of the artist who wrote it, the moment it was recorded, and the collective memory of every fan who has ever heard it. When "Enter Sandman" kicks in at a stadium, thousands of people FEEL it because they have a personal relationship with that track. AI-generated music doesn't have that relationship with anyone. Not yet, and honestly, maybe never will.
Here is the part that should give every team pause. When you use AI to generate a song, the ownership of that content is murky at best. In most cases, what gets generated belongs to the AI company, not to you. That is a serious problem for any team looking to use a track across stadium, social media, and broadcast applications.
It gets more complicated when teams try to push the creative envelope. I've had people pull me aside at conferences over the last couple of years describing ideas like using AI to have one artist perform another artist's song. It sounds cool in theory. In practice, you are stepping on image and likeness rights, master recording rights, publishing rights, and potentially walking into a lawsuit before the track ever hits the speakers. The excitement around what AI CAN do tends to outrun the awareness of what it legally CANNOT do.
There are companies building their businesses right now around generating AI music specifically for teams and venues. This is worth knowing. Some of this technology will likely evolve into something more useful over time. But right now, the legal framework around AI-generated music has not caught up with the technology, and that gap puts teams in a vulnerable spot.
If what you are really after is something unique and custom built for your team, the answer is not AI. The answer is working with real producers who understand the stadium environment inside and out. Companies like our friends at APM can work with you to create a custom audio landscape, something entirely original, entirely cleared, and entirely yours. What you end up with is a sonic fingerprint as individual as your logo. That is the goal, and that is something AI cannot deliver with the same confidence or legal clarity right now.
AI is going to be one of the biggest topics at the IDEA conference in Cincinnati this July, and I cannot wait to dig into it with all of you in person. If you have questions before then, or if you are already navigating these waters and need some guidance, reach out. This is exactly the kind of conversation we love having at The Score.
Contact John Adams at john.adams@thescore.us to chat AI music and other music licensing issues.