Episode 2 Chris Sowa & Thomas Livers 01 hal who signed off

AI is already changing college athletics—but what happens when it moves beyond game film and starts touching athlete performance data, medical information, recruiting, ticketing and operational systems? In this episode of HAL: Who Signed Off on This?, host Chris Sowa talks with Tom Livers, Associate Athletic Director for IT Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about what AI looks like from inside a major college athletic department. HAL_Chris_Tom Tom’s team supports far more than computers. UNC Athletics runs roughly 280 events per year, including football games with more than 50,000 attendees and basketball games with more than 21,000. His team helps support ticketing, public safety, concessions, merchandising, broadcast systems, replay technology and the infrastructure behind the fan experience. HAL_Chris_Tom The conversation explores how AI could change that environment, including: AI-powered video analysis that can identify plays, players and game events almost instantly Combining data from athlete wearables to analyze performance and potentially identify injury risk Where athlete data crosses into sensitive educational or medical information How FERPA, privacy offices and data-governance teams affect what new technology can access Why public roster information is very different from private performance or health information The risk of sensitive athletic information creating an advantage for competitors—or even betting markets Why some critical systems, such as ticketing, are intentionally isolated from broader internet access What happens when technology fails in the middle of a live sporting event Why completely banning AI inside an organization may simply push employees to use consumer AI tools outside the organization’s controls Tom describes UNC’s approach as a more practical middle ground: establish governance, determine which tools are permitted, and keep institutional data inside appropriately controlled environments rather than assuming employees simply will not use AI. HAL_Chris_Tom He also sees significant upside. AI-based video analysis could reduce hours of manual game-film work to seconds and eventually may be able to identify movement patterns associated with injury risk. HAL_Chris_Tom The central question remains the one behind every episode of HAL: When AI gets access to the data and starts influencing the decision, who signed off on it? Guest: Tom Livers, Associate Athletic Director for IT Services, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Host: Chris Sowa Podcast: HAL: Who Signed Off on This?