The Oakland Ballers, an independent Pioneer League baseball team, let an AI system manage an entire game, but the experiment left many fans upset.
Founded by edtech entrepreneur Paul Freedman after the Oakland A’s departure, the Ballers have become a symbol of community resistance to corporate decisions that stripped Oakland of its pro sports teams. Known for their creativity and tech-friendly experiments, the Ballers partnered with AI company Distillery to build a real-time game management system powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The AI, trained on over a century of baseball data plus Ballers’ own games, was tasked with making pitching changes, pinch-hitting calls, and lineup adjustments. According to Freedman, the AI largely mirrored the decisions that human manager Aaron Miles would have made. The only override came when Miles had to substitute a sick catcher.
The novelty of an AI manager even led to some lighthearted moments, like when Miles offered the opposing coach a handshake via the tablet running the AI.
But while the tech experiment ran smoothly, fan reactions were far less forgiving. Many saw the move as pandering to Silicon Valley rather than honoring Oakland’s baseball culture. Critics drew comparisons to the corporate greed that pushed the A’s and other franchises out of the city.
“There goes the Ballers trying to appeal to Bay Area techies instead of baseball fans. It’s so over for Oakland,” one fan wrote online.
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Freedman acknowledged the backlash, saying the team has no plans to repeat the AI trial. Still, he believes the controversy raises important questions about technology in sports.
“It never feels good to have your fans be like, ‘We hate this,’” Freedman said. “But it’s not a bad thing that there’s more of a conversation about the pluses and minuses of this new technology now, as opposed to like, a decade later when it’s too late.”
