National Football League and Amazon Web Services Expand Partnership to Further Shape the Future of Football

The National Football League and Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced an extension of their long-term partnership. Since 2017, the NFL and AWS have been at the forefront of innovation, leveraging AWS's artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) services to shape the future of football.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240910844846/en/

(Graphic: Business Wire)

The global partnership will be on display during this week’s games with the debut of a new AI-powered Next Gen Stat that changes how we understand and analyze tackles in football. The Tackle Probability ML model predicts, at any given moment of a play, the likelihood that a given defender will make a tackle, helping to quantify which defenders are the most reliable tacklers and which ball carriers are most elusive. Tackle Probability can be used to calculate various metrics that can be applied to both offensive and defensive analysis, such as missed tackle attempts by a defender and missed tackles forced by a ball carrier.

To view a video of Tackle Probability in action, please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqvAiuC7d7U.

Powered by AWS, the Next Gen Stats platform collects over 500 million data points each season. This wealth of data serves as the foundation for innovation throughout the NFL, from enhancing fan engagement through advanced statistics to transforming the viewing experience by enabling alternate broadcasts and new ways of visualizing the action on the field. Additionally, data-driven insights have a direct impact on the game itself by informing rule changes to make the game safer and even more exciting, including the NFL’s new Dynamic Kickoff.

A key component of the partnership renewal is the implementation of generative AI to increase operational efficiency and drive additional value for the league and its fans.

“Through our collaboration with AWS, we are continuously pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in football,” said Gary Brantley, chief information officer at the NFL. “By harnessing the power of data and advanced technologies like generative AI, together we are accelerating the pace of innovation in important areas such as player safety, fan engagement and content production. This season we’ll see an increase in operational efficiency as we begin to leverage AWS’s generative AI capabilities at NFL Media.”