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
Sports and entertainment company Topgolf is officially bringing a full-scale, high-tech golf and gaming complex to the Seattle area, with plans to break ground on Tuesday in Renton, Wash., at the southern end of Lake Washington. Topgolf Renton-Seattle will be located off Logan Avenue near The Landing, a sprawling shopping and dining development that opened in 2007, according to Topgolf and an advisory from the City of Renton. GeekWire first reported in December 2018 that Topgolf was eyeing the site and a 14-acre parcel of land as a potential location. The three-level venue is expected to open in 2022 and… Read More
Morgan Geekie might be the right guy for the right town. There are obviously plenty of geeks in Seattle and we’ve even embraced a handful who play professional sports in the city. But this is the first time we’ve connected with one who’s especially, well … Geekie. A 23-year-old hockey player from the tiny town of Strathclair, Manitoba, Geekie was selected last week by the Seattle Kraken during the NHL expansion draft. In 38 career games with the Carolina Hurricanes, Geekie had six goals and three assists. Three of those points came in his first NHL game — and his… Read More
Sue Bird is plenty busy these days, trying to guide the Seattle Storm to their fifth WNBA championship and getting set to chase her fifth Olympic gold medal as a member of Team USA. Along the way, the basketball great is throwing her support behind another tech gadget, making a pitch for smart home fitness trainer Tonal and investing in the startup. A new 30-second ad from the brand (above) is set to air before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday. Bird is shown working out on Tonal’s digital weight system and in a voiceover says, “I’ve redefined… Read More
Amazon’s interest in sports has taken the tech giant from NFL stadiums to NHL hockey arenas and now onto the racetracks of Formula 1 as Amazon Web Services has played a key role in the design of new F1 race cars. The racing league revealed the next-generation car in a YouTube presentation on Thursday, and Amazon said in a blog post that the intent is to create more intense racing and excitement on the track through more aerodynamic vehicle design. AWS figured in the process by using Computational Fluid Dynamics and thousands of compute cores to run simulations of over… Read More
