PGA Tour partners with AWS for cloud-based video services and fan experiences

Golf’s PGA Tour has appointed Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its Official Cloud Provider. The deal will see the Tour use AWS machine learning, storage, compute, analytics, database and media services to process and distribute video footage from its various tournaments.

As a result of the partnership, a raft of new digital experiences will be created that the two parties said will “provide fans with a more complete and personalised experience across Tour competition”.

Included will be Every Shot Live, an over the top (OTT) streaming platform powered by AWS, that will give viewers live access to every shot from every player in a tournament.

The Tour will also use AWS media services to speed up video delivery for televised event coverage and OTT streaming. To accomplish this, AWS technology will simultaneously process and distribute OTT content, formatting it for viewing over a variety of delivery platforms and devices, including smartphones and tablets.

“Our collaboration with the Tour will change the way that fans will be able to connect with the sport by giving them real-time access to virtually every moment on the course and letting them determine how they experience the game.”

Using AWS Media Services, the Tour will make tournament footage available globally to authenticated broadcasters, content subscribers from AWS and other sources.

“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 personalising our content to enable fans to engage with the tournaments and players they support.”

In addition, the Tour will build a ‘data lake’ for real-time and historic multimedia content on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

This will allow it to migrate nearly 100 years of media content, including video, audio and images dating back to the 1928 Los Angeles Open, to AWS. Live footage from future tournaments will also be streamed directly into the data lake.

The Tour will then use Amazon Rekognition – AWS’s deep learning service – to automatically tag content with specific metadata like player names and sponsor logos.

It is said that this will help the Tour and its content partners search, review, annotate and package new content, as well as give them instant access to key moments from throughout its history to aid commentary and add depth to event coverage.

Fans, too, will benefit from enhanced access to years of this tagged and archived golf footage and highlights through the Tour’s web and mobile apps.

To round out the partnership, AWS will also become a Trustee of First Tee, a youth development organisation supported by the Tour that reaches more than 3.7 million young people across the United States and select international locations each year, helping them build their strength of character through the game of golf.

Andy Jassy, chief executive of AWS, added: “The partnership and experience we create with the Tour will be unique. Unlike other sports, there’s more than one ball in play on a golf course, which makes it harder for fans to follow how every player is performing. Our collaboration with the Tour will change the way that fans will be able to connect with the sport by giving them real-time access to virtually every moment on the course and letting them determine how they experience the game.”

The agreement sees AWS become the Official Cloud Provider, Artificial Intelligence Cloud Provider, Deep Learning Cloud Provider and Machine Learning Cloud Provider of the Tour.