If this is the future of sports broadcasting, fans will be turning away in droves.
The New Mexico Open, a three-day tournament at Turtleback Mountain Golf & Resort and streaming on social media that finishes Wednesday, has featured the debut of an AI analyst named Duff Foreman alongside human broadcasters Ryan Burr and Notah Begay III.
Videos making the rounds on social media show how cringeworthy Foreman’s contributions were.
In one clip, Begay asks Foreman, moving awkwardly in a separate box on the screen, about the win probablity for the top five players in a question clearly designed to try to play to the AI’s strengths.
Five seconds of silence ensued before Foreman replied.
“Now, we are talking numbers,” Foreman, dressed in a dark blue beret and quarter-zip with a light blue button-down, said in a Scottish accent. “Blake Tomlinson is leading the pack with a win probability of about 11 percent, and he has a huge 34 percent chance to land in the top five. Right behind him you have Sean O’Hair at around 7.6 percent and Steven Chervony at 7.3 percent, both with a 27 percent probability of a top-five finish.”
Another clip shows Foreman cutting off Burr mid-sentence.
“Here’s to a round of pure strikes and a trophy on the mantle to cap off 54 years of greatness,” Foreman says.
There is an X account for Foreman, which shared a video Monday of Burr and Begay praising its contributions to the broadcast in a weirdly forced moment.
“Finally the first ever live AI on-course broadcaster Duff Foreman. Your thoughts on Duff’s debut?” Burr asks Begay.
“I really had a great time working with him,” Begay said, trying his best to come across earnestly. “I thought he worked very well into the show. It was very seamless and I’m looking forward to sort of elaborating on his role within our broadcast because I thought he definitely added some value to what we’re doing and it was a lot of fun.”
Another video posted to the X account on Tuesday shows Foreman going over the top five on the leaderboard. After sharing that Chervony was leading at “8 under,” he says “minus 5 under” for Max Chan and Ryan Sullivan, which is redundant and not proper golf parlance. He also said “minus 4 under” for Dylan Healey and “minus 3 under” for Kyle Hogan. He additionally appeared to call Hogan “Hoffman.”
The X account was originally created in March, and early videos unrelated to the New Mexico Open show Foreman looking and sounding different.
