NBA and Amazon Web Services Partner to Revolutionize Basketball Analytics with AI

Amazon's AWS strikes AI cloud partnership with NBA

Oct 1 (Reuters) - Amazon.com's (AMZN.O), opens new tab cloud unit, Amazon Web Services, announced a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association to launch new AI-powered features and data insights from games, the organizations said on Wednesday. The deal, which did not have a financial value attached, will introduce "NBA Inside the Game", a basketball platform that will turn data points into insights and interactive experiences. Sports firms have increasingly adopted artificial intelligence, striking partnerships with cloud providers to use machine learning to provide in-depth statistics for fans. The "NBA Inside the Game" platform will offer a suite of features for live broadcasts and across the NBA App, website and other social channels, they said. The new AI features and data will also be available to teams for review. "Whenever we build a statistic, there is always input from our teams, because we want to make sure that these services we build not only are great for our fans, but also help our teams improve their strategy on court," NBA's head of media operations and technology, Ken DeGennaro told Reuters. The platform will track data from players to generate AI statistics such as defensive positions of teams, data on shot success percentage and strategy, he added. Earlier this year, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab signed a five-year partnership with the English Premier League under which the cloud giant will infuse its AI copilot into the league's digital platforms. Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

NBA, Amazon partner to offer 4 new stats for fans and broadcasters

As pro sports have grown increasingly more complex and teams have become more reliant on analytics, often kept in-house and proprietary, fans have been left trailing behind. This season, though, we might get more insight into what NBA players are doing on the court thanks to a new suite of stats the NBA will drop over the next few months. The league will launch three new stats during the 2025-26 season based on its player tracking data that could increase access to the information teams have been fiddling with for years. The NBA will begin to offer defensive box scores, a new way to understand the difficulty of any given shot taken during a game and will try to contextualize a player's on-court gravity. It will also put in a new function it calls "play finder" that will analyze player movements during each possession, label them and allow fans and teams to search for similar ones that season and in the data set. The rollout is part of a new NBA effort to use machine learning, and a new commercial partnership with Amazon Web Services, to try to innovate new experiences for fans, broadcasters and teams as the league no longer positions itself as not only a basketball league operator but also as a tech company. "Very much so," said Ken DeGennaro, the NBA's executive vice president for media operations and technology. "And I would even include media company as part of that sort of marker, right? Because a lot of what we're doing is to bring a better broadcast experience, and I wouldn't even call it broadcast -- a game watching, game consumption experience to our fans. And we're going to invest in the technology to be able to make that happen and integrate that into our media and distribution services. Whatever they may be, be it broadcast, be it our owned and operated DTC platforms, be it on social, be it on our websites. But you know, whatever output there is, we want to make sure that we continue to invest to be able to improve that experience for our fans." The stats the NBA will unveil, which they are calling NBA Inside the Game, stem from its relationship with AWS and the use of cloud services. The two companies announced a new five-year partnership Wednesday but have been working together before this to create these new products. The NBA relied on Amazon for its cloud computing and processing power to create these products. The four public-facing stats are all an endeavor to increase an understanding of the sport. The league will rely on its player tracking data, which uses pose data that incorporates 29 data points on a player's body collected 60 times per second to gather their movements and positioning, to underline the endeavor. The defensive box score will take the traditional box score stats and invert them to attribute the statistics to the defensive player involved. It is, perhaps, the most basic of the stats being rolled out. A new gravity metric will be the league's attempt to quantify how much pressure a shooter or rim runner puts on a defense. It will look at how closely players are defended, the attention they receive and how much space they create for others on the floor. It will not be any raw number but will be used as a contextualized stat that can be used to compare players to one another. "There's a lot of trigonometry involved," Charles Rohlf, the NBA's vice president of stats technology and product development, said, though he noted gravity won't be ready when the season begins. The most interesting stat might be the one that measures each shot's difficulty. The NBA will use player pose data to see where they are on the court, how they are positioned, how close their defender is, and other information to create an estimate of what the expected field goal percentage for that shot would be to then understand how easy or difficult that shot is based on a machine learning model it has created that analyzed thousands of past shots so it can create a prediction for this next one. This will allow fans to gauge the best shooters in the league, Rohlf said, not just on raw shooting numbers but also comparative ones. The league will provide this metric live on its website so fans can access it during games. It will also make play finder available during games as well. "Play finder is, we believe, a revolutionary AI machine learning underlying model that looks at every play we are calling offensive sequence," Rohlf said. "So think of it as roughly from the time the offensive team brings the ball into the frontcourt and they run some sequence of actions that results in a shot or a turnover. But you know that span of time from the moment they sort of cross half court to the moment they conclude their offensive sequence. So it takes all the tracking data of the movement of the five offensive players and the ball, and it embeds that in a dimensional space with some basketball logic built in, so that we can quickly find other plays with very similar patterns of movement." Julie Souza, AWS' global head of sports, said the new capabilities will be available to Amazon and the league's other broadcast partners during games, and they can integrate them into their production. The partnership between the NBA and AWS will also include the WNBA, G League and Basketball Africa League. Souza said she met with WNBA executives last week to figure out what that league is looking for and where it wants to go. She mentioned that could mean the creation of new analytics and uses particular to that league. That includes possible options in refereeing and looking at player health through the prism of female athletes. "What are their priorities, right?" Souza said. "And so some of it is the analytics. Let's get parity in this space and get the same sort of insights that are available for the NBA available for the WNBA. It's really interesting, some analytics they want to dig into, because they are more specific to the women's game, and so it'll be fun to pioneer stats for the first time with the W as well." The NBA, she said, was looking for a company that could help it innovate, and this could be just the beginning of what they create together. It comes, of course, as the NBA also begins its 11-year media rights deal with Amazon Prime Video, which will air 67 regular-season games and the NBA Cup. "There's also just lots of what's to come," Souza said. "We weren't talking about generative AI a couple of years ago, and now it's all anybody's talking about. So as new technologies come to the market, we're really well positioned with the NBA to let them experiment and play and for us to support them in that."

NBA taps Amazon Web Services to develop new basketball stats as Amazon deepens sports push

Amazon is not only streaming NBA games for the first time this season -- it's also aiming to establish a new data-driven way to understand the sport. The league on Wednesday announced a new multi-year partnership with Amazon Web Services on Wednesday that includes "NBA Inside the Game," a new basketball intelligence platform fueled by AI. The platform, built on AWS' AI infrastructure alongside billions of data points, will enable new statistics such as "Defensive Box Score," which uses AI to assign responsibility and measure individual defensive impact. * There is also "Expected Field Goal %," which calculates the likelihood of a shot going in based on positioning, pressure, and other variables. * "Gravity" quantifies how much defensive attention a player attracts and the space they create for teammates even without the ball. The new stats will show up across the NBA app, NBA.com, social channels, and during NBA on Prime broadcasts. The partnership will also roll out "Play Finder," a tool that lets broadcasters and fans search thousands of games for similar plays. Julie Souza, AWS' global head of sports, said the deal mirrors the company's role with the NFL's Next Gen Stats -- framing it as both a technology showcase and a long-term innovation partnership. For AWS, it's an opportunity to turn basketball into a case study for AI at global scale. "The reason we do these deals is to let us tell highly technical stories in really accessible ways," Souza told GeekWire. The deal establishes AWS as the official "cloud and cloud AI partner" of the NBA, WNBA, G League, Basketball Africa League, and NBA 2K League. The partnership highlights Amazon's dual role in sports: distributing games through Prime Video while embedding its technology deeper into leagues' data and operations. The company already works with Formula 1 on real-time race insights, and with Bundesliga on its match data. Microsoft has a similar deal with the NFL, which uses the company's cloud tools and Surface tablets. Later this month, Amazon Prime Video will kick off new 11-year NBA rights deal, with 67 games streaming globally each season. "NBA on Prime" is a significant addition to Amazon's sports streaming catalog, which includes the NFL's "Thursday Night Football" as well as live action from MLB, NASCAR, and Premier League soccer.

NBA and AWS partner to enhance fan experiences with AI - SiliconANGLE

The National Basketball Association and Amazon Web Services Inc. today entered a multiyear partnership in which AWS will serve as the official cloud artificial intelligence provider for the NBA and all its affiliates, which includes the NBA G League, WNBA and Basketball Africa. The partnership centers on using the NBA's data and AWS AI to transform the game experience for fans. The NBA is launching a new basketball intelligence platform powered by AWS called Inside the Game. The platform analyzes 29 different player body points using AWS AI and machine learning capabilities. It then turns the player tracking data into insights and interactive features, which will appear in live broadcasts and across the NBA App, NBA.com and the league's social channels. "Being able to contextualize what you're seeing through data is going to be really fun to see," said Kristin Shaff, global director of strategic partnerships at AWS. "We're working with the NBA across a variety of different dimensions, focusing first on engaging fan experiences. We view this as the tipoff of a game-changing era of basketball innovation, not just across the NBA, but their affiliate properties as well." The partnership with the NBA began by creating novel ways for fans to consume the game experience, according to Shaff. Starting with the 2025-26 season, AI will be used to analyze player stats that have not been previously measured. One of the new stats being introduced is the defensive box score that shows which player was guarding whom, while also capturing details such as ball pressure, double-teams and defensive switches. Another stat is shot difficulty, measuring how tough each attempted shot will be. It's determined using factors such as a shooter's setup, the defender's pressure and the player's position on the court. The third stat is gravity, which looks at how much attention a player gets from defense and how that creates space for teammates. AWS calls it a "revolutionary system" that can process optical tracking data 60 times per second, using custom neural networks to show how defenders react to certain players. The platform will also introduce a feature called Play Finder that can instantly analyze player movements from thousands of games. It will allow live broadcasters to add richer context and compare historical plays. Over time, Play Finder will evolve into a more fan-facing feature, where users will be able to interact with the plays directly. "We have a strong vision for the future in terms of the personalization and customization of the experience we can deliver to fans globally through AWS AI," said Shaff. "It's exciting -- we're building the foundation for so many innovative technology projects that are very important to the NBA, which shares our passion for innovation and for delivering customized, personalized experiences to fans." AWS' NBA partnership is like what it already does with the National Football League and Thursday Night Football, where broadcasts include more detailed data and insights than traditional coverage. NBA fans can expect a comparable experience, as new stats and more context are added during live broadcasts. There is also an opportunity to make broadcasts more relevant to fans in different regions, since basketball has a large global audience. AWS has done this in golf by enabling the PGA TOUR to provide coverage around local players. The NBA could take a similar approach by not only offering broadcasts in multiple languages, but also highlighting international players who matter most in specific markets. This would help make the viewing experience feel more personal for fans around the world. "Two billion fans worldwide are consuming the game across a variety of different platforms, and we're a part of delivering that experience to fans globally," said Shaff. "This is the foundation for a lot of work to come, and innovation that we will be behind." The timing of this partnership aligns with Amazon's broader push into basketball, as Prime Video begins its 11-year media rights deal this season. Sixty-seven regular-season games will stream on Prime globally starting October, with a doubleheader featuring the Celtics against the Knicks and the Lakers against the Timberwolves. The infusion of AI into sports can have a big impact helping leagues expand their audience. There are many casual fans that do not understand the intricacies of a sport like the hard-core fan. AI democratizes expertise and can help everyone better understand what to watch for and how difficult certain plays were. This improves an understanding of a sport, which leads to greater viewership, driving up league revenue. AWS has had a big impact with the NFL, PGA TOUR, F1, Bundesliga Soccer and other sports and now it's bringing AI to the NBA.

Amazon's AWS strikes AI cloud partnership with NBA - The Economic Times

Amazon Web Services has entered a multi-year partnership with the NBA to create AI-powered features and data tools for fans and teams. A new platform, "NBA Inside the Game", will turn live game data into insights and interactive content across broadcasts, the NBA app, website, and social media.Amazon.com's cloud unit, Amazon Web Services, announced a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association to launch new AI-powered features and data insights from games, the organizations said on Wednesday. The deal, which did not have a financial value attached, will introduce "NBA Inside the Game", a basketball platform that will turn data points into insights and interactive experiences. Sports firms have increasingly adopted artificial intelligence, striking partnerships with cloud providers to use machine learning to provide in-depth statistics for fans. The "NBA Inside the Game" platform will offer a suite of features for live broadcasts and across the NBA App, website and other social channels, they said. The new AI features and data will also be available to teams for review. "Whenever we build a statistic, there is always input from our teams, because we want to make sure that these services we build not only are great for our fans, but also help our teams improve their strategy on court," NBA's head of media operations and technology, Ken DeGennaro told Reuters. The platform will track data from players to generate AI statistics such as defensive positions of teams, data on shot success percentage and strategy, he added. Earlier this year, Microsoft signed a five-year partnership with the English Premier League under which the cloud giant will infuse its AI copilot into the league's digital platforms.

Amazon's AWS strikes AI cloud partnership with NBA

(Reuters) -Amazon.com's cloud unit, Amazon Web Services, announced a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association to launch new AI-powered features and data insights from games, the organizations said on Wednesday. The deal, which did not have a financial value attached, will introduce "NBA Inside the Game", a basketball platform that will turn data points into insights and interactive experiences. Sports firms have increasingly adopted artificial intelligence, striking partnerships with cloud providers to use machine learning to provide in-depth statistics for fans. The "NBA Inside the Game" platform will offer a suite of features for live broadcasts and across the NBA App, website and other social channels, they said. The new AI features and data will also be available to teams for review. "Whenever we build a statistic, there is always input from our teams, because we want to make sure that these services we build not only are great for our fans, but also help our teams improve their strategy on court," NBA's head of media operations and technology, Ken DeGennaro told Reuters. The platform will track data from players to generate AI statistics such as defensive positions of teams, data on shot success percentage and strategy, he added. Earlier this year, Microsoft signed a five-year partnership with the English Premier League under which the cloud giant will infuse its AI copilot into the league's digital platforms. (Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)