Amazon and NBA Team Up to Revolutionize Basketball Analytics with AI
In a groundbreaking partnership announced Wednesday, the NBA and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have joined forces to transform how fans, analysts, and teams understand basketball through advanced AI technology. This multi-year collaboration introduces “NBA Inside the Game,” a comprehensive basketball intelligence platform that promises to unveil previously invisible aspects of the sport. As Amazon prepares to stream NBA games for the first time under its new 11-year rights deal, this partnership represents more than just a broadcast agreement—it’s a fundamental reimagining of basketball analytics for the digital age.
The platform leverages AWS’s sophisticated AI infrastructure to process billions of data points from NBA games, creating new statistical categories that measure aspects of basketball previously left to subjective observation. Among these innovations is the “Defensive Box Score,” which uses artificial intelligence to quantify individual defensive impact by assigning responsibility for specific plays—addressing a longstanding gap in basketball analytics where defensive contributions have been notoriously difficult to measure objectively. Similarly, “Expected Field Goal Percentage” calculates shot probability based on multiple factors including defender positioning and shooting pressure, while “Gravity” measures how much defensive attention a player attracts even without the ball, quantifying their value in creating space for teammates. These metrics offer unprecedented insight into the subtle dynamics that often determine basketball outcomes but have traditionally escaped statistical capture.
Basketball fans will encounter these new analytics across multiple platforms, including the NBA app, NBA.com, social media channels, and during Amazon’s Prime Video broadcasts. The partnership also introduces “Play Finder,” an innovative search tool enabling broadcasters and fans to instantly locate similar plays across thousands of games—essentially creating a searchable visual database of basketball moments. This technology not only enhances the viewing experience but fundamentally changes how fans can engage with and understand the game’s patterns and strategies. Julie Souza, AWS’s global head of sports, described the partnership as comparable to the company’s role in developing the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, positioning it as both a technology showcase and a long-term innovation partnership that transforms basketball into a global case study for applied artificial intelligence.
For Amazon, this agreement represents the latest evolution in its dual-track sports strategy—distributing premium content through Prime Video while simultaneously embedding its technology infrastructure deeper into sports operations. The deal officially establishes AWS as the “cloud and cloud AI partner” of the NBA ecosystem, including the WNBA, G League, Basketball Africa League, and NBA 2K League. This mirrors Amazon’s existing technological partnerships with Formula 1 for real-time race insights and with Germany’s Bundesliga for match data analytics. These collaborations highlight how Amazon is positioning itself not just as a content distributor but as the technological backbone for modern sports operations and analytics—similar to Microsoft’s relationship with the NFL, which utilizes the company’s cloud tools and Surface tablets.
The timing of this partnership coincides with Amazon Prime Video’s imminent launch of its NBA coverage, which will include 67 games streaming globally each season as part of the new 11-year media rights agreement. This NBA package significantly bolsters Amazon’s growing sports streaming catalog, which already features the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football,” live MLB games, NASCAR events, and Premier League soccer matches. The dual approach of content distribution and technological integration represents Amazon’s comprehensive strategy to become indispensable to sports leagues while building value for Prime subscribers through exclusive content and features. By combining game broadcasts with proprietary analytics, Amazon creates a uniquely differentiated viewing experience that leverages the company’s technological strengths.
The NBA-AWS partnership illustrates how professional sports are increasingly becoming showcases for advanced technology, with artificial intelligence transforming not just how games are analyzed but how they’re experienced by fans. Through this collaboration, casual viewers gain access to insights previously available only to coaching staffs and front offices, democratizing basketball intelligence while adding new dimensions to fan engagement. For the NBA, the partnership represents an opportunity to stay at the forefront of sports innovation, building on its reputation as one of the most technologically progressive major sports leagues. As these new analytics become integrated into broadcasts and digital platforms over the coming season, they promise to change how we talk about, understand, and appreciate the nuances of basketball—turning previously subjective observations into quantifiable metrics and revealing the hidden patterns that shape the game we see on court.
