infrastructure that needs to be in place,” said
Dave Lehanski, NHL executive VP of business
development and innovation. “There’s a
tremendous amount that we’ll be able to do.”
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Amazon
Web Services CEO Andy Jassy unveiled the
deal on NBC Sports Network late Wednesday.
Bettman said the “state-of-the-art technology
and services will provide us with capabilities to
deliver analytics and insights that highlight the
speed and skill of our game.”
The NFL, Formula One, Bundesliga soccer and
Six Nations rugby already use Amazon Web
Services, along with individual teams. Beyond
the NFL’s “NextGen Stats,” the Seattle Seahawks
have used it study practice habits.
“There’s potentially a lot of ability for coaching
staffs to actually help their teams get better
by just learning where players may be
efficient, where there are some opportunities
to coordinate better,” AWS VP of sales and
marketing Matt Garman said.
Later this season, fans looking up stats on the
NHL’s website will get corresponding video
clips and vice versa. The league expects to
have new 4K cameras mounted to each arena’s
center scoreboard by at least the playoffs to add
different angles.
For all the data puck and player tracking can
provide, that video will allow Amazon’s AI to
piece together even more about goaltending,
faceoffs, stick positioning and possibly pave the
way for new stats and analytics.
“It’s just the start of where this is going,” Lehanski
said. “It kind of melts your mind with the number
of opportunities that are sitting in front of us.”