Updates

The NFL and Amazon Web Services, Inc., an Amazon.com company, extended their long-term partnership. Since 2017, the NFL and AWS have been at the forefront of innovation, leveraging AWS's artificial intelligence and machine learning services to shape the future of football.

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 the likelihood that a given defender will make a tackle at any given moment of a play, 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.

Powered by AWS, the Next Gen Stats platform collects more than 500 million data points each season. This 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. 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. 

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

NFL Media has implemented Amazon Q Business, a generative AI-powered assistant, so users can ask questions and get answers to a wide range of questions. NFL Media has also launched a generative AI-powered research tool built on Amazon Bedrock that enables the production team to use natural language prompts to retrieve insights and relevant footage from plays throughout the NFL’s Next Gen Stats database quicker than ever.

These developments will boost productivity and enable teams to produce high-quality content across NFL Media’s properties.

The partnership extension will build upon several industry-leading innovations, including:

• Next Gen Stats: As the NFL’s proprietary player and ball tracking platform, Next Gen Stats is used by the league, broadcasters, partners, teams, coaches, scouts and players. The NFL leverages AWS to help manage the scale, speed and complexity of the enormous data set. The NFL uses AWS’s machine learning capabilities to turn the tracking data into advanced statistics that help contextualize the action on the field.
• Digital Athlete: This cutting-edge injury recognition and analytics tool provides a complete view of an NFL player’s experience, using video and data from training, practice and in-game action. AWS technology runs millions of simulations of specific in-game and practice scenarios to identify which players are at risk of injury, enabling coaches and training staff to develop individualized injury prevention, training and recovery regimens. The Digital Athlete has been instrumental in informing recent rule changes, including the NFL’s new, Dynamic Kickoff. The NFL used it to model the new kickoff, simulating 10,000 seasons’ worth of the play to better understand potential risk to players.
• NFL Big Data Bowl: The NFL annually hosts the Big Data Bowl powered by AWS, a crowd-sourced competition that challenges applicants to use data and technology to create new insights and make the game more exciting for fans. More than 50 participants have been hired by NFL teams or league vendors to work in football analytics.
• Unified View of the Fan: The NFL has developed a platform on AWS that combines data from multiple sources to create a comprehensive view of fans. The league can glean deeper insights into fan behavior, preferences and engagement levels, enabling more personalized and tailored experiences.
• NFL Schedule: The NFL uses AWS to power its schedule-making process, running high-performance computing workloads to find the best possible schedule each year from a quadrillion possible combinations.
• NFL Films and NFL Media: The NFL uses AWS for NFL Films’ digital archive, ensuring that the league’s invaluable content is preserved and accessible for generations to come. AWS also provides the cloud infrastructure for NFL+, enabling the NFL to strengthen its direct relationship with fans and provide greater access to football content.