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The NHL brought its third annual technology showcase to Seattle this week. It was fitting given the growing ties between the tech giant and pro hockey.
The league took over Thursday evening at Climate Pledge Arena for the event, where it showcased technology partners helping the NHL develop new statistics, increase fan engagement and more.
I looked at the action at the Climate Pledge – named after Amazon’s carbon neutral initiative – and ran into Amazon Web Services head Adam Selipski.
“AWS has a great partnership with the NHL,” Selipski told GeekWire. We’ve been together for a few years now and look forward to continuing to expand and, most importantly, bring fans valuable experiences they’ve never had access to before.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy didn’t appear to be at the meeting — surprising since Jassy is part owner of the Seattle Kraken, which beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-1 on Thursday.
Amazon has entered the world of sports over the past several years. The company’s most high-profile partnership is with the NFL and its exclusive deal to broadcast Thursday Night Football games.
At the NHL Show, AWS demonstrated live cloud-based production of the game — a first for the NHL and a new alternative to traditional truck-based live sports production. The demo was done with a remote team – Graphics in Seattle; technical director in Wisconsin; And replay operators in Toronto and Vancouver.
“There are many advantages to producing a live game in the cloud – operational efficiencies, cost savings,” said NHL Executive Vice President of Business Development and Innovation Dave Lehansky.
NHL technology leaders unveiled a new “Opportunity Analysis” feature from AWS that analyzes real-time and historical data to assess shot difficulty at release. Stats are expected to appear on live broadcasts later this month.
The NHL is partnering with AWS for a product called Edge IQ that uses machine learning to predict faceoff winners.
Jassy, who led AWS before taking over as CEO from Jeff Bezos in 2021, is “very involved” with the NHL partnership, Lehanski said.
“Good for us,” he said.
Amazon is also working with Formula 1 and Germany’s top soccer league, the Bundesliga, which will launch new stats from AWS this weekend.
Amazon is one of the many tech giants that have tied up with pro sports leagues and teams.
- Google recently beat out Amazon and Apple to secure a multi-year deal for NFL Sunday Ticket, which gives the company exclusive streaming rights through the growing YouTube TV platform through the 2023 season.
- Microsoft had a long-standing deal with the NFL that included the use of its Surface tablets by players and coaches on the sidelines during games, as well as other marketing deals. It also entered into a recent cloud deal with the NBA.
- Apple sponsored this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.
- Google Pixel sponsored the NBA playoffs last year.
- Amazon is rolling out cashless checkout technology at stadiums and arenas across the country, including the Climate Pledge.
The sports deals allow tech companies to market their brands in front of a larger audience and show case studies that can attract other corporate customers.
Leagues and teams know that technology is playing a bigger and bigger role in growing their fan base and meeting growing consumer demand.
The NHL’s tech demo showed that — but the league is also taking it cautiously.
“Technology is evolving. In a statement to reporters in Seattle before Thursday’s game, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said that we’re on the cusp of evolution and we’ve tried not only to stay current, but to be on the cutting edge. And that was our mantra.
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the technology partners at the event Thursday.
- SAP He helped the league build a bench training app that provides coaches with real-time information similar to the Microsoft Surface tablets in the NFL. The latest SAP application generates video playlists for each location-specific statistics and new camera angles. In addition, SAP powers NHL’s spatial metrics platform that can analyze energy use.
- Excellent networks Monitors network activity and communication across NHL platforms, including usage awareness during key plays.
- MLSE Digital Labs He brought a physical table overlaid with data from NHL EDGE, the league’s puck and player tracking technology. The plan is to bring the experience to the NHL’s official app.
- Beyond sportsVirtualization technology is being used by the NHL to create alternative live broadcasts, such as last month’s NHL Big City Greens Classic, which featured animated characters that mimic players in real games.
- Play anywhere It is working with the NHL to build apps that allow fans to engage with live game broadcasts, including free-to-play games.
- SMT It helps provide player overlays, stats and other graphics for traditional media broadcasts.
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