Despite Microsoft’s technology partnership with the NFL, this upcoming season, Amazon’s cloud technology will be distributing the league’s statistical data to it’s loyal fans.
Microsoft has not been completely shafted, according to the NFL’s senior director of emerging products and technology, Matt Swensson. Network World reported that Swensson ensures the league is happy with it’s Microsoft partnership and still uses Microsoft for a number of projects, including their new NFL apps, which will be compatible with Windows 10 and Xbox One.
The data that Amazon will be distributing is going to be collected by Zebra Technologies. The tracking system has been installed into every NFL stadium and tracks player movement by monitoring the radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag attached to every player’s shoulder guards.
These tracking systems can capture up to 25 frames per second, meaning that the system knows exactly where every player is within 6 inches for an entire game. The information is then processed by Zebra’s MotionWorks and sent to broadcasters, and in this case, Amazon.
Matt Swensson warns that the league will be taking it slow on how it develops its data collection while the NFL adjusts. The main reason being that if the data is sliced in too many different ways, there is a potential for teams to identify opposing players’ tendencies or weaknesses at an extremely enhanced level, which could be diabolical for the game.
This new technology will benefit the enthusiasts sitting at home, watching the game who have a genuine interest in their team and their performances. It will create a new approach for those competing in fantasy leagues and has the potential to better determine every athlete’s value.
However, while the idea was generally brought about to enhance the game from a fan’s perspective, the technology can contribute to injury management. The NBA and MLB have recently been trialling technology specific to injury prevention, but in this instance, it appears the NFL could hit two birds with one stone.
While the data will still be distributed to fans, Swensson raised the point that Zebra and Amazon’s system could benefit the NFL when it comes to working on health and safety initiatives. This particular tracking system was not designed to cater for a player’s entire body of health, but it is one more point of access for the health staff to analyze.
Many will argue that Microsoft may be on the way out in light of the NFL’s decision to go with Amazon, but the league insists this is not the case, claiming that it was the simple case of the organisation’s employed engineers having a greater knowledge and comfort level with Amazon’s cloud system than they did with Microsoft.
The new system should present more opportunities in the future to expand data distribution, however, as Swensson said, will have to be done carefully. There would be nothing worse than every team in the league having access to statistics that would completely blow on-field strategy out of the water. And injury prevention, being more talked about than ever before, will also have a vested interest in the technology to further develop its own projects.
Although Amazon has claimed the NFL’s data rights, Microsoft does not need to panic. With the company leading the way in the tech age, the NFL simply cannot afford to let such a giant force in the industry get away.