Fighting for Fairness
Areto Blog Article by Kasey Machin
Why nuance matters in moderating sport channels, and how cleaner channels drive revenue.
Sport has always been emotional. Loud. Passionate. Occasionally chaotic. That energy and unpredictability is a huge part of its appeal. But lately, the comments section has been a race to the bottom, fueled by abuse, and amplified by bots and synthetic accounts.
As leagues expand their use of AI to grow global audiences, personalize content, and automate distribution, the digital environments around sport are changing quickly. The same tech that helps leagues grow engagement and increase revenue, can also be used to distort it – through bot amplification, fake accounts, automated piracy networks, and coordinated digital abuse.
It’s big business and it’s happening across the entire sports ecosystem.
When club media teams spend all their time managing the bots and the bad actors, it’s almost impossible to create the content that really unlocks brand value for fans and sponsors. That’s where responsible and customizable AI moderation can be a true game changer, freeing up time and easing the mental burden of dealing with cluttered channels and leaks. Take the Edmonton Oilers NHL 2024 playoffs run as an example: Areto’s systems automatically scaled to handle the massive influx of comments and content. There was a 108% increase in comments managed automatically, ensuring that no harmful material slipped through the cracks, freeing up the brand team to focus on promoting the positive rather than handling the harm.
Engagement is the new broadcast
For leagues like the NHL and Serie A, digital engagement now directly influences rights value, sponsorship pricing, and global expansion. But in the AI era, conversation quality is under threat. Sponsors aren’t just buying jersey rights anymore, they’re buying access to global fan communities.
But those communities only have value if they’re authentic.
When fake engagement and synthetic accounts affect metrics, things get messy. Conversations are hijacked, true fan sentiment gets harder to interpret and report on, and the trust that leagues have worked so hard to build with their audiences (and their sponsors) starts to erode.
At Areto, we’re already seeing how coordinated abuse and bot amplification can suppress or hijack real conversation in moments that should belong to the fans – whether it’s a Stanley Cup Game outcome, a controversial penalty, or a trade deadline frenzy.
The result? Your community is cluttered with spam and junk, or criticism escalates from acceptable fan frustration into abuse or harassment, and is then amplified by bots. Players are impacted, performance suffers, and brand and marketing teams spend all their time managing the chaos when they want to be building connection. And that’s a problem, because connection is the product.
The next growth frontier isn’t smarter AI. It’s smarter governance.
AI adoption across all industries is accelerating and sport is no exception. Clips are being generated automatically; content is being localized for global audiences in real time; teams are using predictive models to target fans with personalized content.
All of that is exciting. And necessary. But AI without oversight can create its own problems.
In an effort to clamp down, fully automated moderation systems can over-censor fan enthusiasm. And that matters even more when you’re operating across multiple languages and markets. Moderation systems can struggle to distinguish between genuine rivalry banter and targeted abuse.
Anyone who has ever watched a high-stakes game knows there’s a big difference between those two things. Sport runs on emotion. If you strip that out entirely, you’re left with something that feels very… corporate. And fans notice that quickly.
With Areto's social media moderation tool in place, the New Jersey Devils saw a 78% increase in comments by authentic users. By auto-deleting 300+ crypto and porn scams in 3 seconds, fans felt safer to engage, and the Devils saved 45 minutes of manual moderation time per game.
“The New Jersey Devils wholeheartedly endorse Areto, and we are confident that their solution will continue to empower organizations seeking to enhance their online engagement.”
