tools will speed up the process of writing content. In the future, we will encounter a role that is a little less decisive when it comes to developing content”.

Regarding the data sources, they mainly come from external feeds for the list of injured footballers and typology of injuries, as well as for the weather forecasts for the matches at elite level competitions. Another feed BeSoccer uses to store data is public data: who a player’s agent is, what brands his boots are or what his sponsor is. In this sense, Guerrero and Heredia point out that big data and artificial intelligence related to journalism have positive elements, “both technologies combine very well with journalism” in terms of data management and easy access to well-classified sources.

In June 2019, BeSoccer had a significant community on social networks. In addition to 2,600,000 registered users, it has amassed over 2.5 million Facebook fans, more than 100,000 on Instagram, and 17,000 on Twitter.

Regarding the general data, in 2018, they closed the year with over 124 million users, more than 20 billion page views, over 270 million impressions in one day. Its turnover was 3.8million euros in the same year. Part of this success, as Guerrero af-firms, is “thanks to the use of big data as their core business. We offer it as an API and widget to media, clubs, entities linked to football as an informative complement to their channels. Big data also allows us to offer decisive consulting services in sports managers’ initial phase of transferring players”. In the marketing field, the influence of these technologies when it comes to writing the content without human professionals’ participation is unquestionable for Guerrero, “It will have a lot of influence. If it is easy to track and “predict” the products and services a consumer is interested in, generating the content they want is exactly the same thing.”

4. Conclusions

The objective in this research is to identify reference sources concerning AI applied to journalism as well as to investigate the case of BeSoccer in-depth, a reference in the sports field. BeSoccer has applied “an algorithmic turn” (Napoli, 2014), enabling them to produce news from AI. Firstly the main theoretical and research contributions concerning AI and journal-ism were highlighted, as well as those related to the case studied. Secondly, it is essential to point out that the interviewees observe an initial statement that centers on sports journalism and in the case of BeSoccer, a greater influence of AI because this type of journalism is more “based on data than on other types of journalism such as social or political journalism.”

Following the results from the interviews with Heredia and Guerrero, both point in the same direction as Salaverría (2017) referring to new forms of content production, as well as the profile of a new journalism professional influenced by BD and AI. The transformation of the journalist’s role is evident from the results in the case of BeSoccer.

As can be seen in the results, BeSoccer opted for changing and breaking away from the traditional model for the journalistic profession, specifically in sports, following the dual path that Ford (2016) indicated.

Finally, from the professional’s point of view, Heredia and Guerrero’s assessments coincide with Lindén’s theory (2017), who highlighted automated news writing as being more effective and satisfactory for workers, warning of jobs losses, but corresponding again that new professional roles could be generated and, also that professionals roles’ can be changed from a mere writer to a supervisor or news editor.