Texas Launches Bevo Lab AI Hub Led by Kirk Goldsberry

The Dell-, Google Cloud- and SHI-backed lab will unify athletic data and build AI tools for coaches across 21 varsity sports, starting with football.

Texas Athletics and the Business of Sports Institute (BOSI) at the McCombs School of Business have launched Bevo Lab, an AI and data analytics hub for the university's 21 intercollegiate teams and more than 500 student-athletes.

The lab will be directed by Kirk Goldsberry, BOSI's executive director, and will engage as many as 40 student researchers each year on modeling and data projects. Goldsberry previously oversaw analytics operations for the San Antonio Spurs and USA Basketball for the 2016 Olympics, and he is an NBA analyst for The Ringer. Athletic director Chris Del Conte announced the project Oct. 23 at Texas' Business of College Sports Summit.

"With the help of our nationally ranked academic leaders and cutting-edge technology brand sponsors, Bevo Lab will become the global benchmark for innovation in sports AI and data analytics, making Texas Athletics the most data-driven athletic program in the country. What starts here changes the world, and this vision will transform collegiate athletics. There is no bigger stage, no more powerful brand and no better time than now to lead in this new evolution of sports technology." — Chris Del Conte, Vice President and Folger Family Athletics Director, University of Texas

Dell Technologies is the premier founding sponsor and Official Technology Infrastructure Sponsor. Google Cloud is the Official Cloud Provider and Enterprise AI Provider, supplying Google Cloud Platform and Gemini. Founding sponsor SHI International will serve as strategic technology and solutions integrator. Longhorn Sports Properties, the Austin-based division of Learfield, helped develop the lab and secured its founding sponsors.

The core of the build is Bevo Lakehouse, a unified data warehouse that consolidates game film, wearable data and other sport-specific information. It starts with football before expanding to all 21 varsity sports. The lab will also build predictive models, including "transfer AI" for roster evaluation, along with visual and natural-language interfaces for athletes, coaches and administrators. According to the announcement, early work with Google Public Sector has introduced AI workflows that save Texas coaches more than 15 hours per week in game preparation.

In an interview with Front Office Sports, Goldsberry said football coach Steve Sarkisian's staff has handed over its processes and reports for the lab to streamline. He described sport-specific chatbots that would let coaches query opponent data in natural language. He also said he expects the lab to create jobs for students rather than reduce staffing, and that data on student-athletes must be protected at the highest levels.

"There are reasons to be skeptical about AI and its impact in many domains—and trust me, I'm there. I'm a writer. But when it comes to sports analytics, it's pretty clear that this stuff is going to lead to a lot of improvement and a lot of new standards for best practices in that field." — Kirk Goldsberry, Executive Director, Business of Sports Institute, McCombs School of Business

Bevo Lab will be housed in Innovation Tower, adjacent to campus in Austin's Innovation District.