NEW YORK—NBA fans should have better insight than ever into the subtleties of pro hoops beginning with the 2025-26 season, thanks to a new multiyear partnership between the league and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The partnership, announced today, makes AWS the Official Cloud and Cloud AI Partner of the league and its affiliate leagues, including the WNBA, NBA G League, Basketball Africa League and NBA Take-Two Media.
The NBA and AWS will launch NBA Inside the Game powered by AWS, a new basketball intelligence platform that will turn billions of data points into insights and interactive experiences, reimagining how fans engage with the game of basketball worldwide.
Built on AWS’s AI infrastructure, the platform will introduce a suite of features that enhance live broadcasts and elevate fan experiences across the NBA App, NBA.com and the league’s social media channels, the league said.
“Partnering with AWS provides us with an opportunity to elevate the live game experience through innovation and offer fans a deeper understanding of the game of basketball for years to come,” NBA Executive Vice President and Head of Media Operations and Technology Ken DeGennaro said. “AWS has a proven track record of delivering unique statistical insights and offering transformative experiences that will resonate with NBA fans around the world.”
The partnership pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in sports, AWS Vice President of Professional Services and Agentic AI Francessca Vasquez said.
“This partnership will showcase how cloud and AI can reimagine the game of basketball—from generating new insights to creating experiences that bring fans closer to the game they love,“ she said. ”Together, we’re delivering technology that not only enhances live broadcasts and digital platforms, but also transforms how players, coaches, and fans understand basketball.”
The NBA will leverage AWS’s AI capabilities to provide fans with live stats and comprehensive analytics during games. This new advanced statistics platform processes the NBA’s player tracking data, analyzing the movements of 29 data points per player using machine learning and AI to contextualize in-game developments and generate real-time insights. Fans can deepen their understanding of the game by accessing new statistics via the NBA App, NBA.com and during live NBA games, including during NBA on Prime broadcasts.
Throughout the 2025-26 season, the NBA and AWS will introduce new AI-powered stats that capture aspects of basketball performance that have not been measured previously, starting with:
- Defensive Box Score, which quantifies individual defensive contributions that traditional statistics cannot measure. AI algorithms detect which defender is responsible for each offensive player in real-time. Once the primary defender is determined, the traditional box score can now be enhanced by identifying the defender at the time each stat was recorded. Additional new metrics, such as ball pressure, double teams and defensive switches, can now be viewed and tallied as well.
- Shot Difficulty, which transcends traditional make-or-miss statistics to evaluate every aspect of each shot attempt. The difficulty of attempted shots will be quantified with new stats, such as Expected Field Goal Percentage, which takes into account various factors like the shooter’s orientation and setup, defensive contest details related to pressure, interference and each player’s positioning on the court.
- Gravity, which shows what coaches and analysts have observed for years: how certain players create advantages for teammates simply by being on the court even without touching the ball. This new stat measures the level of attention a player receives from the defense, including how closely they’re guarded with or without the ball, to quantify the amount of space they create for their teammates. This system processes optical tracking data 60 times per second, using custom neural networks to analyze how defenders react to specific players, while factoring in real-time game context and historical data.
NBA Inside the Game powered by AWS will also feature a called “Play Finder,” which uses AI to analyze and understand player movements across thousands of games. Using AWS services, such as Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker, the feature will enable instant search and retrieval of similar plays, laying the foundation for future generative AI integrations built on player tracking data. Play Finder will help fans and broadcasters learn common offensive strategies and explore deeper insights by combining play results with advanced analytics.
A real-time alert system within Play Finder will enable commentators to provide instant historical context and strategic insights. NBA teams will have direct access to the ML models powering Play Finder to improve their front office and coaching workflows.
Future iterations of Play Finder will allow fans to explore basketball strategy on the NBA App.
The NBA App, NBA.com and NBA League Pass, the league’s out-of-market game package, will run on AWS. Through this partnership with AWS, the NBA will accelerate basketball’s growth worldwide by offering fans new and unique opportunities to understand team strategy and the concepts that lead to execution on the court. Additionally, the NBA and AWS will deliver in-language content and personalized experiences to fans across platforms.
More information is available on the AWS website.
