The NFL returns to Amazon Prime Video this week with the “Thursday Night Football” matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams. As Amazon gets set to kick off its fifth season of streaming the action, the company shared details about what to expect. This will be the final season of the NFL’s existing “tri-cast” model of broadcasting “TNF.” Next season, Prime Video will be the exclusive home for 15 games on Thursdays, thanks to a deal that Amazon reached with the NFL earlier this year. Prime coverage this season includes 12 games and a Wild Card playoff game… Read More
Second-guessing an NFL coach on whether he should have gone for it or kicked on fourth down is one of the great pastimes of watching the sport. Now the league is turning to Amazon Web Services and Next Gen Stats to better inform the armchair quarterbacking by fans and broadcasters. AWS and the NFL announced a new stat called NGS Decision Guide on Wednesday that will be used during the 2021-22 season. Using a series of machine learning models, the equation focuses on win probability — how much the game will change in the hypothetical event of each outcome —… Read More
It might seem like a no-brainer to pit the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Tom Brady against “America’s team,” the Dallas Cowboys, in the opening game of the 2021 NFL season. But figuring out the matchups, locations and timing of the other 271 games takes a bit of computing power. The NFL leverages its partnership with Amazon Web Services to sort through some of the endless scenarios that come into play when figuring out how to match 32 teams across 17 games during an 18-week period, all while optimizing for fairness, travel, and availability of particular venues. The… Read More
Amazon and the National Football League have tacked on an extra year to a recent deal that makes Prime Video the exclusive home for “Thursday Night Football.” The reported $1 billion a year deal will now run 11 seasons and start with the 2022 season. The announcement came Monday as Amazon was taking part in the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) NewFronts, where platforms pitch media buyers for ad dollars. The existing “Thursday Night Football” tri-cast package between Amazon, Fox and NFL Network, will now expire after this season. Prime Video will carry 15 games per year and one pre-season game per… Read More
High-tech football helmet maker Vicis is a runaway leader in a new ranking of the key piece of equipment by the National Football League and the NFL Players Association. Vicis helmets took the top three spots in the annual Helmet Laboratory Testing Performance Results in which helmets are assessed by independent experts, measuring the ability of the equipment to reduce the severity of impacts to the head. The study, in its sixth year, featured more than 25 different helmets approved for use in the upcoming NFL season, and aims to help players make more informed decisions about which gear they… Read More
