How Sports Graphic Designers Are Grappling With the Rise of AI Art

On April 21, the new ChatGPT Images 2. 0 launched, enhancing the software’s ability to create AI-generated graphics. In the immediate aftermath, graphics made by the OpenAI product went viral on social media, with many disparaging human graphic designers.

“Yeah man designers are about to be jobless,” one X user wrote on a post alongside AI-generated jersey swaps of soccer players Lamine Yamal and Eduardo Camavinga, which garnered more than 7,000 likes. These posts left some graphic designers confused, and even defensive, about why people were demeaning their careers. “The fact that people are out there defending legitimate robots is beyond me,” John Osborn, who has done design work with Bleacher Report and Electronic Arts, tells Front Office Sports .

Osborn, who says he “loves negativity toward AI ,” has built up 17,000 X followers with his sports designs. AI social media discourse made its way into the pro sports sphere as well, with various teams like the Timberwolves , Borussia Dortmund , and the Saints denouncing AI art. But amid anti-AI sentiment coming from other sports teams, several major franchises were quietly using it.

The Indiana Fever were criticized after Caitlin Clark joked about a graphic that mangled her hand with an AI tool. Though the NHL’s Jets and Blues denounced AI graphics online, the Jets told FOS that they plan on incorporating AI in future creative content, while a source told FOS that the Blues do the same. Sports designers who spoke with FOS believe their expertise and skill will not be replicated by AI—at least for now.