The digital protection of sports intangible cultural heritage is an important measure to promote the implementation of the national cultural digitization strategy. Through the methods of literature research and field survey, this paper explores the realistic representations, deep causes and resolution paths of the technical paradox of digital protection of sports intangible cultural heritage. The connotation of digital protection of sports intangible cultural heritage is clarified. The survey found that the technical paradox showed four realistic representations: the cognitive limitations of the protection subjects, the imperfection of the digital archives management systems, the negative effects of digital protection, and the challenges of cultural guidance. Further analysis shows that the digital protection of sports intangible cultural heritage has deep causes in terms of protection concepts, protection systems, protection technology, and protection mechanisms. Based on this, this paper puts forward the resolution paths from four aspects: updating the cognition of digital protection subjects, strengthening the construction of digital protection systems, strengthening the technical support of digital protection, and consolidating the cultural foundation of digital protection.