YES Network and Camb.ai to Collaborate on AI Localisation Infrastructure

YES Network, the regional sports broadcaster for the MLB’s New York Yankees and the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, has entered into a collaboration with Camb.ai, a live AI translation provider.

The partnership focuses on utilizing artificial intelligence to enhance content accessibility for non-English speaking fans through advanced localisation tools.

This agreement marks a milestone for Camb.ai, representing its first strategic alignment with a regional sports network (RSN). The company, recognised as an innovator in the sector, has previously executed projects for major rights holders including Major League Soccer (MLS) and NASCAR.

Highlighting the necessity of the partnership given the demographics of the network’s home market, senior director of distribution and special projects at YES, Jason Feneque, said: “New York’s considered the most diverse city in the world with a massive multilingual audience.”

“So the next step for us was naturally to find a partner as innovative as Camb.ai with their capabilities to better engage the YES viewer.

“The Brooklyn Nets roster is extremely diverse… The Yankees roster is diverse with Spanish speakers from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama.

“Each Spanish language has its own unique dialect that Camb.ai can personalise for the viewer,” Feneque said.

The collaboration is centred on developing what Camb.ai CTO Akshat Prakash terms “localisation infrastructure for sports media.” This strategy aims to extend the technology across all business areas, enabling the broadcaster to convey written and spoken content in a fan’s native language.

While no specific consumer-facing products have been announced for immediate release, executives from both organisations confirmed that testing is scheduled to commence in 2026.

A primary application is expected to be the integration of language selection capabilities within the Gotham Sports App, the streaming platform operated by YES Network in partnership with MSG Network. This would allow fans to customise their viewing experience based on language preference.

Camb.ai is also expanding its technical capabilities through a recent partnership with semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom, aimed at placing text-to-speech AI technology directly on consumer devices. Bringing that to the mobile phone or consumer devices is going to be a huge unlock in how sports leagues and organisations think about distribution in the future, as stated by Prakash.

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