AFL AI content: league orders Sportsbet to delete player deepfakes

Sportsbet’s clips took famous lines from movies, TV and speeches and put them in the mouths of AFL players and coaches, reacting to real events. They were posted on the company’s social media, marked as age-restricted, and aimed at drawing new followers and customers.

• Lachie Neale, the former Brisbane Lions premiership player now at Collingwood, was shown accepting an award at his new club with the words of Snoop Dogg’s 2018 Hollywood Walk of Fame speech, the one where he thanks himself.
• Will Ashcroft, the Brisbane Lions player and two-time Norm Smith medal winner, was shown yelling a profane threat from the crime drama Ozark. Sportsbet framed it as his reaction to Fremantle playing its “Wharfie Time” song late in the 2026 AFL grand final.
• Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell and former North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson also appeared in AI content.

The videos were meant to be funny. They were pulled from Sportsbet’s Instagram in mid-October, shortly after a journalist contacted the company about them.

The AFL Players’ Association, which acts as the players’ union, wrote to the league with its concerns and argued the videos broke the collective bargaining agreement. That deal, covering 2023 to 2027, sets the rules for how league partners can use players’ images.

The catch is that the agreement never mentions AI. It does let Sportsbet use player images and video without asking, but only in some situations and with limits. The union’s position is simple: AI-made player imagery needs the players’ sign-off. Alex Taverner, its general manager of legal affairs, said the union pushed for the content to be removed and for Sportsbet to stop making AI player imagery without approval, and that the AFL would now work with Sportsbet to take it down.

The league kept its statement short, saying it would keep working with partners on AI content as the technology changes. Sportsbet said it listens to partner feedback and is working with the AFL on how it uses AI, taking community expectations into account.

Sportsbet’s timing raised eyebrows because Australia has already passed a law to keep athletes out of gambling ads. The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill passed parliament on August 19, 2026, and its rules start on January 1, 2027.

From that date, gambling ads in Australia can’t feature a “notable person”, on TV, radio, news sites, games or social media. The term covers current and former professional athletes, celebrities, social media influencers and other prominent people, and the regulator’s first guidance calls the definition deliberately broad. Betting companies also won’t be allowed to sign sponsorship deals with such people to promote wagering, and the law restricts betting ads during live sport and inside sports venues.

The responsibility sits with the betting company, not the star. The early reports on the guidance don’t say how AI-generated likenesses will be treated, but an ad starring a famous player’s face looks like exactly the kind of association the rules target.

The regulator is already busy. In late October, it formally warned two former AFL players turned influencers for promoting an illegal gambling site on social media, a separate rule that applies today.

For everyday viewers, the lesson is to be a little more skeptical of funny clips of famous people. A video can look and sound like a real athlete and still be completely made up, and brands are now using that for marketing, not just pranksters.

Independent senator David Pocock, a former professional athlete, said the case shows a lack of safeguards against deepfakes, meaning AI-faked video or audio of real people, especially when it is used to promote gambling. A University of Sydney lecturer who studies influencers and gambling said someone at Sportsbet most likely acted without considering that a player’s image is often part of their own brand.

For athletes everywhere, the gap is the contract. Many image-rights deals were written before convincing AI video of real people was easy to make, and the AFL deal shows they can say nothing about it. That gap is what the next round of player agreements will have to close.

The AFL’s current pay deal with players runs through 2027, so the next agreement is the natural place for clear AI rules. Before that, the national ban on notable people in gambling ads takes effect on January 1, 2027.