Beautiful words about the beautiful game which no AI can replicate

A global sporting event brings home the relevance of good content only people can create.

by Rob Corbidge

Published: 14:59, 09 July 2026

Footballing is happening and happening big. Go team! 

In case you have been sheltering from the summer heat under a rock, I'm referring to the World Cup, a unique sporting event that guarantees thrills, spills, controversies, heartbreaks and triumphs. It's an amazing opportunity for those in publishing who consider themselves  good at sport content to prove it.

Initially though, I must declare myself as an outlier. I have watched precisely zero live games in this tournament, and only some goal highlights on various platforms. What I have done however, is read all the post-match reports from two different UK sites, both of which employ knowledgeable and talented journalists who know well how to weave the story of a game of football, and how to make it a compelling read, even when the game itself wasn't all that much.

So I am both a bad example, but an interesting test, against a premise I read this week which suggests AI will replace human writing.

Does it deserve a red card, or would it be overturned by a technological intervention?

Words versus feelings
The good news from this test is that written sporting content is still an excellent product. The good sports writer, the one who could bring colour, humour, pathos, and context to their writing, was always a valuable asset. They remain so.

Sport is both a matter of life and death, and also only sport. Such a collision produces fantastic sparks, and with it, the opportunity to produce tremendous articles I've been happy to read. Much as fans bemoan the intrusion of video refereeing as neutering the spirit and excitement of the game, so AI writing feels remote and disconnected too.

Yet I'm aware of the two sites I'm using, both are reliant - to a varying degree - on their subscription model. This means they have the money to pay for good journalists who know what it means to cover a World Cup, and moreover the ability to both fund a team of writers and pay for their accommodation and travel during a lengthy stay in the United States through the duration of the 37 day tournament.

In my opinion, from the content perspective, it pays off - but does it still make sense to the business?

I ask this, because a piece by Greg Krehbiel, a US publishing strategist, has stuck with me since he published it last week. In the article, The next iteration of publishing, Krehbiel argues that ultimately, free, AI-produced content will triumph in large parts of the market. In short, he makes the argument that "We're moving towards a publishing market where AI content monetized by ads is going to dominate".

The crux of Krehbiel's argument sits in the idea of what people will settle for, saying that "all of our experience says that most people will settle for lower quality [if] it comes at a much lower price". By this, in a publishing context, he means what we disparagingly refer to as "slop". Such disparagement always strikes me as dangerous, as it feels like we're underestimating a considerable foe, but it's the term we have.

Krehbiel makes the point that, at heart, the internet was built on a "free with ads" model. That is true, although what was not foreseen was how the advertising model would become dominated vertically by a few major players. Nevertheless, that is the basic model we have.

He offers two solutions: go all in on AI for your content and try to run with the tech hounds, or "become impossible to replace".

"Impossible to replace" sounds like the niche almost every publisher wants to occupy, but how easy is it?

For me, having been fortunate enough to read thousands of words describing a sporting competition that I appreciate the moment of, without wishing to fully engage with, a niche has been filled. Yet, I can also guarantee that a good proportion of those football fans who watched the games will also read the match reports, and would rather read one that reflected the drama and passion of what they've just seen. 

AI can't see, and simply can't feed the mind in the way another human can when describing uniquely human experiences.