The university that produced sports reporting legends, including Keith Jackson, Art Eckman and Cindy Brunson, will now be using artificial intelligence to "expand storytelling" by its athletics department.
Washington State University announced Monday a new partnership with AI company "FanWord," a Lincoln, Nebraska, startup founded in 2019 that boasts partnerships with more than 250 public and private schools across the country, from big conference powerhouses to smaller private colleges.
FanWord's technology assists with "game recaps, feature stories, player bios, award nominations, transcriptions, and other editorial content," according to a news release from WSU. Athletic director Jon Haarlow is quoted in a statement with the news release, saying the partnership will help "elevate our storytelling while improving our efficiency."
The statement did not offer detail regarding how the use of AI to write content would affect WSU staff and student interns.
"Sports communication is something Wazzu is known for, and, yes, AI is part of the future," said Sam Taylor, a sports reporter for the Lewiston-Tribune. "But churning out feature stories on your athletes and coaches, why on earth would you want that?"
Taylor graduated from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication within WSU prior to joining the Lewiston paper to cover WSU athletics. He said the internships offered by university athletics programs can be invaluable for students preparing for a career in sports media.
Some of Taylor's former and current colleagues conducted their first interviews, learned how to gulf relationships and honed their writing talents while working for an athletics department in between scholastics. He said he's skeptical about the partnership because of the stated intent to generate content, and how that may lead to fewer opportunities for students.
"I really hope it has a minimal role in the writing process, but it doesn't seem like that will be the case," Taylor said.
Athletics department spokesman Bobby Alworth said he does not expect the partnership to end opportunities for students. The department is learning the capabilities of FanWord, including its feature writing.
Alworth said game reporting and play-by-play statistics will be fed into the AI software to generate game recaps.
"So you can have it put it in AP style, say 'I want five or six paragraphs,'" Alworth said. "Slanted toward WSU, obviously."
Someday, Alworth said, the athletics department may just be able to plug in game footage directly to generate content. The only human aspect to the final report would be in an oversight capacity.
Alworth said FanWord is just another tool for their communication team that will cut down the time spent writing recaps, transcribing news conferences or updating statistics. No full-time positions were cut as a result, he said, and he reiterated that the department is committed to continue offering opportunities to students.
"Students will still have opportunities to interview; it also helps our athletes who may not have experience with the media," Alworth said.
Barrett Henderson, a spokesman for Gonzaga University athletics, said the university ended its partnership with FanWord after one year due to budget cuts ahead of the 2026-27 school year. He said it was a useful research tool and that some of the concern directed at WSU and other Pac-12 institutions is blown out of proportion.
"It does so many different things that it's hard to quantify," Henderson said of FanWord. "It's really a tool to help athletic communication departments."
Athletics departments across the country are getting smaller, Henderson said, which is why some are turning to artificial intelligence for help. Gonzaga University staffers and student interns used the software to compile statistics, transcribe interviews and do other relatively mundane, time-consuming tasks.
Gonzaga athletics did not use FanWord to generate feature articles. Henderson said that is an additional function that costs more that the university declined.
Henderson said student interns and employees are a vital part of athletics departments, especially in the Inland Northwest, so he understood the qualms with potential loss of opportunities.
"We're pretty dependent on student workers in our area; we love our students and we owe a lot to them," he said.
Gonzaga still has ties to artificial intelligence, just of a different sort. The collegiate basketball powerhouse announced last week that AI logistics company Altana will serve as a sponsor, complete with a patch on jerseys worn by the men's basketball team, as previously reported by The Spokesman-Review.
Altana's clientele includes the U.S. government, as well as large retailers.
Aarik Long, a former Murrow student and current sports editor for the Mountaineer in Waynesville, North Carolina, said he's comforted that FanWord will be used more as a back-end tool.
He said making data more digestible and accessible would be helpful, but caution is needed.
"It's a slippery slope," Long said.
Bruce Pinkleton, dean of the Murrow communications school, addressed the concerns about student opportunities in a statement posted to social media Tuesday, but did not directly voice an opinion on the matter. He said 10 Murrow students are currently working with the department, the highest in several years, and that he's encouraged by Haarlow's support of student opportunities.
"We're teaching our students to use a variety of tools, including AI, and we continue to emphasize hands-on learning opportunities that incorporate AI along with other tools prevalent in our field," Pinkleton's statement reads.
Taylor noted not all of those students may be working on generating written content for the department; some are photographers and others are in assistant or administrative functions.
It is disingenuous of the university to boast about the students working in the department and to not clarify the lack of opportunities to create, Taylor said. He's open-minded to AI tools that assist with the creative process, like using a software to transcribe a recording, but is skeptical of how the partnership will develop over the years to come.
"It's yet to be seen how WSU will actually use it," Taylor said.
Long said the university should be mindful of potential fabrications made by the software, as has been seen in other cases of artificial intelligence use. A human will still be needed to double-check the end result.
The platform may be used for what is considered "tedious work," but that's still work many student journalists would be eager to accept, he said.
"There's students there that would love to have that experience and to get their foot in the door," Long said.
Washington State University's three-year contract with FanWord will cost $5,000 a year, Alworth said. It will be a lesson for students as much as the department, he said.
"This is another tool for all of us to learn together and to help them prepare for the future," Alworth said.
Spokesman-Review reporter Erik Etherton contributed to this report.
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