Cricket Fans Can Stay Up-To-Date on the World Cup With Google Assistant
The 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup is underway and Google is keeping fans in the know using Search and Assistant. Fans can now ask Assistant questions about the game schedule, current standings, or stats on their favorite teams and players. Searching “ICC Cricket World Cup” in Google Search results in a tournament table, pictured below, that’s available in seven languages. The table includes live scores, short video clips with commentary for those who aren’t able to watch games in real time, as well as lineups and winning probabilities.
Google Assistant Offers Other Sports Actions
There are many other ways Google is keeping sports enthusiasts up-to-date. If you type “sports” into the Assistant actions explorer bar, which claims to have over one million searchable actions, News, Scores and Schedules sections pop up. Google-developed actions, like Sports Facts and News show up at the top of the list followed by results from various user-submitted actions. You can view Google Home’s supported sports and leagues using their Help Center as a resource, where they note that other sports and leagues are coming soon. Current supported sports include: baseball, basketball, football (American and Canadian), hockey, cricket, and soccer.
Sports Organizations Increasingly Integrating Voice Assistants
Sports organizations are utilizing all platforms to reach fans and AI systems are at the forefront. Leandro Pontes of the online publication Medium presented five applications of voice assistants that are “shaking up the sports industry.”
- Data driven predictions
- Match review and discussions
- Ordering food and beverages at the stadium
- App integration
- Radio broadcasting
Last fall Voicebot reported that Amazon’s Alexa increased sports-related knowledge, particularly information on NFL teams, soccer, tennis and women’s basketball leagues. Jason Semine, Principal Product Manager at Amazon, explained that sports-related questions have become some of Alexa’s most popular. Amazon streams worldwide tournaments including the US Open, which they had the exclusive rights to broadcast last summer with Alexa on hand as the “tennis expert.”Google Home does not currently support tennis, making Amazon a favorite among tennis lovers. As of 2017, Amazon partners with the NCAA to live stream the March Madness basketball tournament. Users can ask Alexa to start streaming a game, or use the NCAA March Madness skill to ask Alexa questions like standings or how their bracket is looking.
