The San Antonio Spurs have announced the launch of Spurs AI Studio, a new platform designed to create AI-powered fan experiences in collaboration with brand partners and OpenAI.
The studio’s first activation, ULTRA Arrivals, is presented in partnership with Michelob ULTRA and invites fans to snap a photo of themselves and generate a cinematic, player-style tunnel walk video, placing them inside Frost Bank Center in pregame fashion.
The experience is built on the OpenAI API and uses generative AI to produce broadcast-style edits and personalised visuals, replicating the look and feel of an NBA player arrival.
The platform is designed to be repeatable, providing a vehicle for future activations with new and existing partners, rather than a one-off campaign.
ULTRA Arrivals is live now at UltraArrivals.SpursAIStudio.com and is open to fans aged 21+, with sharing encouraged via #ULTRACourtside.
Why It Matters:
The tunnel walk activation is a clever piece of fan engagement. But taken at face value, that framing risks underselling what the Spurs have built.
There are three things worth unpacking.
The first is the commercial model behind ULTRA Arrivals specifically.
Exclusive to players, the tunnel walk was previously an iconic visual moment that brands could sponsor, but they could never truly activate around it from a fan perspective. With AI, the Spurs have unlocked net new commercial inventory, offering an experience that simply didn’t exist before.
Jordan Kolosey, VP of Business Strategy, Innovation & Data Operations at Spurs Sports & Entertainment, said as much at the launch:
“By working alongside innovative partners like Michelob ULTRA, we’re unlocking moments that were once impossible and bringing fans closer to the game than ever before.”
Much of the AI conversation has focused on cost reduction, be it lower headcount, automated workflows, fewer overheads etc. This story runs in the opposite direction. AI is primarily revenue additive rather than cost reductive.
The second is the infrastructure play.
The announcement focuses on Spurs AI Studio as a platform, rather than a one-off campaign using AI. This matters as it illustrates the intent of the organisation to build the technical and creative architecture to produce these experiences repeatedly, at scale.
That infrastructure has value beyond the Spurs’ own fanbase. If they can demonstrate that the studio model works, driving measurable partner ROI, then there is a potentially credible path toward licensing that capability to others who lack the in-house expertise to build it themselves (akin to how Miami HEAT spun out and operate 601 Analytics).
The final point is about the narrative. Spurs received a lot of praise when their relationship with OpenAI was first announced. However, in a market where AI has since become the hottest new sponsorship category, actually shipping something differentiates the organisation as one with genuine capability and reaffirms their positioning at the frontier of AI.
As such, this is a move really worth paying attention to.
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