SEATTLE—The PGA Tour is adding Amazon Web Services (AWS) into its bag, choosing AWS to be its official cloud provider to help transform the way golf content is created, distributed and experienced for fans, Amazon said.
In addition to being the official cloud provider, AWS will also be the PGA Tour’s official artificial intelligence cloud provider, deep learning cloud provider and machine learning cloud provider.
The Tour will use AWS machine learning, storage, compute, analytics, database and media services to process and distribute video footage from each golf tournament. These will be used to create special PGA Tour features, including Every Shot Live, an OTT streaming platform powered by AWS that provides viewers live access to every shot from every player in a tournament.
AWS will also support TOURCast, a new version of the Tour leaderboard that gives fans “video game-like control” of how they watch a golf tournament, per Amazon. Fans will be able to change their viewing perspective with alternative camera angles, navigate around the course, view speed rounds and display player and shot stats on demand.
With AWS Media Services, the PGA Tour will be able to deliver video content faster for televised event coverage and OTT streaming, Amazon said. This process will have the Tour use AWS to simultaneously process and distribute OTT content, formatting it for reliable viewing over different delivery platforms and devices. AWS Media Services will also make tournament footage available to authenticated broadcasters, content subscribers from AWS and other sources.
Other AWS services that the PGA Tour will use includes the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) for compiling past and future multimedia content, and Amazon Rekognition, which will automatically tag content with specific metadata.
“This transformational partnership with AWS will give our fans the opportunity to experience the PGA Tour like never before,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. “Growing and diversifying our fan base is a top priority for us, and thanks to the collaboration and innovation from AWS, we are creating more ways to experience the game of golf, while personalizing our content to enable fans to engage with the tournaments and players they support.”
In addition, as part of the deal AWS will become a trustee of First Tee, a youth development organization supported by the PGA Tour.
For more information, visit www.aws.amazon.com/sports.
