AFL Orders Sportsbet to Halt AI-Generated Player Videos

The Australian Football League (AFL) has instructed its official gambling partner, Sportsbet, to cease using high-profile athletes in AI-generated social-media videos that were posted without player consent. The content included fabricated clips of former Brisbane Lions premiership player Lachie Neale delivering a parody Snoop Dogg speech and dual Norm Smith medallist Will Ashcroft shouting a line from *Ozark* as a response to a grand-final moment. Sportsbet removed the videos from its Instagram page after the AFL was alerted.

The Guardian

Australia’s federal government has recently legislated a ban on athletes appearing in gambling advertisements. The AFL-Players’ Association (AFLPA) argues that the AI videos breach the 2023-2027 collective bargaining agreement, which permits Sportsbet to use player images only under specific, non-AI conditions. The AFLPA’s legal affairs manager, Alex Taverner, said the league’s partners must obtain player approval before employing AI-generated imagery.

The Guardian

The AFLPA reiterated its demand for the removal of the AI videos and for Sportsbet to stop creating such content without explicit player permission.

The Guardian

• “AI being used to generate images of elite athletes without their consent to promote harmful gambling products and attempt to buy social licensce exposes issues with gambling company behaviour as well as the lack of safeguards against deep fakes,” — David Pocock, independent ACT senator

The Guardian

• “The most likely explanation is that someone at Sportsbet acted without thinking and never paused to consider how the images of sportspeople are, themselves, often an element of brands and ownership,” — Mark Johnson, senior lecturer at the University of Sydney

The Guardian