AWS, Cloud Platform Services, AI
Basketball is changing for fans in a big way, thanks to artificial intelligence and cloud technology.
The NBA has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch “NBA Inside the Game,” a platform that will show fans aspects of basketball they’ve never seen before.
Starting with the 2025-26 season, fans, broadcasters, and teams will get access to new advanced statistics and analysis tools that reveal parts of the game you couldn’t see before.
The NBA’s partnership with AWS
The NBA signed a long-term deal with Amazon Web Services, making AWS the official cloud and AI partner for the NBA and its related leagues. It covers not just the NBA but also the WNBA, NBA G League, Basketball Africa League, and NBA Take-Two Media, bringing technology changes across all these leagues.
Together, they are building “NBA Inside the Game,” a new platform that uses AI to show fans things about basketball they couldn’t see before. Built on AWS’s AI infrastructure, the platform delivers AI-created stats to TV broadcasts, apps, and social media, giving fans a new way to follow basketball.
How it works with real-time data
The new platform uses AWS’s AI to handle all the NBA’s player tracking information. It tracks 29 different data points for each player on the court to explain what’s happening and create live stats.
These new metrics capture aspects of basketball that have never been consistently measured before, helping people understand the game better while watching.
Defensive Box Score
The Defensive Box Score updates a basic basketball metric by counting individual defensive contributions that normal stats don’t catch.
The AI figures out which defender is guarding each offensive player as the game happens, so the box score can show specific defensive moves. This creates new metrics like ball pressure, double teams, and defensive switches that can be accurately tracked.
Shot Difficulty (xFG%)
The Shot Difficulty assesses every aspect of a shot to better measure shooting skill. It calculates the Expected Field Goal Percentage (xFG%), which estimates how likely a shot is to go in. The AI considers factors such as where the shooter is, their movement, how closely they’re guarded, and the positions of other players on the court.
Measuring player gravity
Coaches and analysts have long known that some players have a “gravity” that affects the game even without the ball, but now it can be quantified.
This new metric quantifies how a player creates advantages for teammates simply by being on the court. Using neural networks to process tracking data 60 times per second, the system analyzes how much defensive attention a player gets and measures the space their presence creates for others.
Play Finder and the future of commentary
Beyond individual statistics, the partnership introduces “Play Finder,” an AI tool that will change basketball analysis. This feature gives access to historical game data, changing the way commentators, teams, and fans analyze the game.
Play Finder is an AI tool that analyzes player movements across thousands of games. Users can search for and find plays that are similar to what’s happening live. This provides immediate historical context, helping fans and broadcasters understand offensive strategies and explore deeper insights by connecting current plays with similar examples from the past.
This search system uses AWS tools like Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker. These technologies help the tool understand complicated player movements and compare them accurately.
Changing live broadcasts and fan engagement
“Play Finder” will make TV broadcasts better with a real-time alert system that shows commentators quick strategy breakdowns and historical context. This helps viewers learn more while watching games. Later on, fans will be able to explore basketball strategy themselves through the NBA App.
NBA teams will benefit too. Coaches and front-office staff will get direct access to the machine learning models that power “Play Finder” to help with their work. This can improve in-game tactics and player development by giving data-driven comparisons and better insights into play design and execution.
Want to use AWS like the NBA does?
Your business can use the same AWS tools that power the NBA’s new system. At Revolgy, we help companies set up and use AWS services like the ones in this article.
Get in touch with Revolgy to see how AWS might work for your specific needs.
