The AFL has told its official gambling partner, Sportsbet, to stop featuring its high-profile athletes in AI-generated social media content without their permission. Sportsbet has also been told to delete AI videos depicting AFL stars delivering lines from movies, television shows or speeches to react to real events. The videos were age-restricted and designed to boost Sportsbet’s engagement on social media, in a bid for new audiences and customers.
The videos were published despite the federal government legislating to ban athletes appearing in gambling ads. The new rules take effect next year. One recent AI video depicts former Brisbane Lions premiership player Lachie Neale accepting an award at his new club, Collingwood.
Sportsbet manipulated his image to show him mimicking a 2018 speech from the US rapper Snoop Dogg accepting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I want to thank me for doing all this hard work.” Another AI-generated video depicts the Brisbane Lions player Will Ashcroft. The dual Norm Smith medallist was shown screaming a line from the television show Ozark: “If you want to stop me you’re going to have to fucking kill me”.
Sportsbet suggested this was Ashcroft’s response to Fremantle playing Wharfie Time in the final quarter of the 2026 AFL grand final. The videos were removed from its Instagram page on Tuesday afternoon, after Sportsbet was contacted by Guardian Australia. The gambling company has also created AI content using the images of the Hawthorn coach, Sam Mitchell, and former North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson.
While these videos were designed to be humorous, the AFL Players’ Association (AFLPA) said it was not impressed. The AFLPA, which acts as a union, wrote to the league late last week with its concerns. It argued the videos breached a collective bargaining agreement between players and the AFL, which restricts how their images can be used by the league’s partners.
The association’s general manager of legal affairs, Alex Taverner, said: “AI generated player imagery is not permitted without the players’ approval.” “We raised this with the AFL and advocated for both the removal of the content and a cessation of the use of AI-generated imagery and vision of players without their approval. A Sportsbet spokesperson said the company is “always developing content that entertains fans and supports engagement with sport”. The agreement makes no mention of AI.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
