Know before you go: Sports attendee guide for AWS re:Invent 2022

We have an exciting AWS re:Invent 2022 planned for customers in the sports industry. The world’s leading sports organizations are building, migrating, and deploying innovative data-driven solutions that elevate the fan experience and performance analytics, turn data into actionable insights, accelerate innovation, lower costs, and increase return on investment. Keeping with growing demand in the sports industry, for the first time ever, we will have a dedicated AWS Sports track at re:Invent 2022.

This year, AWS heads back to Las Vegas to celebrate 11 years of AWS re:Invent with 5 keynotes, 22 leadership sessions, and over 2,000 breakout and interactive sessions from November 28 through December 2—including several industry-specific sessions featuring sports industry customer stories, solutions, and best practices. If you can’t make the trip, you can still enjoy re:Invent 2022 virtually with free access to live keynotes and leadership sessions, plus access to on-demand breakout sessions. There’s so much going on at re:Invent, so to make it easier for those in the sports industry (or even just those who love sports), here are my tips to get the most out of your re:Invent 2022 experience:

• Register for re:Invent 2022 to attend in person or virtually.
• View and download the 2022 Sports Industry re:Invent attendee guide (PDF).
• Start planning your schedule now in the session catalog and be sure to reserve your seat in your favorite sessions.
• Prioritize sports industry sessions by filtering with the “SPT” session ID, or by using the “sports” track or industry filters.
• Bookmark and check back on this post leading up to re:Invent 2022, as we’ll continually update it to reflect the latest information.
• For more information, reach out to the AWS Sports team.

Over the last few years, we have seen rapid growth and innovation in the sports industry. The world’s best sports and entertainment organizations are reinventing the way sports are watched, played, and managed. Machine learning is producing advanced stats like NFL’s Next Gen Stats and NHL Edge IQ, high performance computing is redesigning F1 race cars, organizations like the PGA TOUR and NASCAR are migrating decades of archived footage to the cloud and using machine learning (ML) services to automatically tag and categorize archives, TD Garden is providing a frictionless in-venue retail experience increasing average spend, and Bundesliga is using ML to deliver personalized fan experiences on any device, while lowering operating costs by 75%. Whether it’s predicting the probability of a catch in real time, or optimizing ticket prices after a winning season, technology is changing the game and AWS is how.

This is shaping up to be an informative and memorable re:Invent for the sports industry—and we can’t wait to see you there!

AWS Sports at re:Invent 2022

In the following sessions tailored for the sports industry, you can learn directly from AWS customers and our own experts about using AWS for key industry use cases, as well as tips, tricks, and best practices.

Customer Panel (available in person and on demand)

AWS re:Invent customer panels are fireside chat style and 1-hour long interactive interview sessions. These sessions take place across the re:Invent campus and cover topics at all technical levels. For our virtual attendees, panel sessions will be available on demand.

SPT102: How the NFL is innovating with AWS and Amazon Prime Video
Thursday, 12/1 at 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Location: Venetian Theater

The NFL is using AWS to transform football by making it more engaging for fans and safer for players. The NFL’s player tracking platform Next Gen Stats, which runs on AWS, is being used to power Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, fantasy football, and sports betting applications. Also, the NFL’s Player Health and Safety team is using AI and ML to build the Digital Athlete, a virtual representation of an NFL player that can be used to better predict and eventually prevent player injury. This session explores how AWS and technology in general are changing some of the fundamental ways that football is played and experienced.

Featured Panelists: Jennifer Langton (Senior Vice President, Health & Safety Innovation, NFL); Larry Fitzgerald (NFL, one of the best receivers in NFL history, my favorite player and favorite team – go Arizona Cardinals!); Cynthia Frelund (one of the best sports journalists in the NFL and NFL Media’s first analytics expert); Eric Orme (Director of Live Events, Prime Video); Justin Burks (General Manager, AWS Sports)

Breakout Sessions (available in person and on demand)

AWS re:Invent breakout sessions are lecture style and 1-hour long. These sessions take place across the re:Invent campus and cover topics at all technical levels. For our virtual attendees, breakout sessions will be available on demand.

SPT101: How AWS helps F1TV increase fan engagement
Wednesday, 11/30 at 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Location: Caesars Forum 113

F1TV is the FIA Formula One World Championship’s dedicated over-the-top streaming service, available as F1TV Pro and F1TV Access across 85 countries. In this session, learn how AWS has worked with F1 to increase global audience reach, engagement, and satisfaction by adding several new platforms including Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, and a range of connected TV devices.

Featured Speakers: James Bradshaw (Head Of Digital Technology at Formula 1); Neil Ralph (AWS Sports Business Development); Maria Ladeira Tanke (AWS Data Scientist)

Interactive Sessions (available in person)

SPT301: Sustainability in sports venues
Wednesday, 11/30 at 6:15 PM – 7:15 PM
Location: Caesar’s Forum 108

This talk will explore smart stadiums and sustainability and to learn from a case study with a US customer.

Featured Speakers: Greg Thompson (AWS Sports Strategy and Business Development Manager Smart Stadiums ); Rahul Sarin (AWS Global Sustainability Lead)

SPT302: Revolutionizing the soccer viewing experience with Bundesliga Match Facts
Wednesday, 11/30 at 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Location: MGM – S Conc. 301

Repeat:
Thursday, 12/1 at 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Location: Caesars Forum 101

The sports industry is data rich, and making sense of that data is the first step in making it an advantage on and off the field. In this chalk talk, learn how the Bundesliga, the German football league, uses 3.6 million data points per match to empower fans, broadcasters, and commentators with advanced stats to tell new stories.

Featured Speakers: Luuk Figdor (AWS Principal Data Scientist Consultant); Mahendra Bairagi (WW Head Sports Innovations Lab)

Demos

This year, we will have some exciting sports demos indoors (Demo Theater) as well as outdoors (AWS Industries Interactive Demo Plaza at Caesars Forum Outdoor Plaza) where our customers can get first-hand interactive experience with innovations in sports technology.

Demo Theaters: Interactive demos at AWS Demo Theater in the Venetian

Theater Demo SPT001: How Bundesliga automates stat-driven replays
Schedule: Wednesday, 11/30 at 1:00 PM
Location: AWS Demo Theater in the Venetian

Data-driven segmentation (DDS) is a solution that allows clubs, leagues, and broadcasters to merge data streams with broadcast footage and produce high-quality clips with graphical elements to highlight exceptional player behavior. In this session, learn how with the DDS solution, the Bundesliga is able to define stories, such as Unlikely Goals, that are automatically clipped, rendered, and pushed back to the production team. Discover how the clips are produced completely in the cloud and fully automated without the involvement of a single operator, allowing virtually any organization to scale data-driven stories across any number of games.

Featured Speakers: Luuk Figdor (AWS Principal Data Scientist Consultant); Mahendra Bairagi (WW Head Sports Innovations Lab)

Theater Demo SPT002: Improving NFL player safety with machine learning on AWS
Schedule: Thursday, 12/1 at 1:00 PM
Location: AWS Demo Theater in the Venetian

In this session, learn about the Digital Athlete program, a collaboration between the NFL and AWS, and how it has improved player safety by studying helmet impacts and lower extremity injuries, allowing the league, teams, and coaches to be more informed about a player’s health. Discover how the program can automatically identify game events with a forcible helmet impact and track these impacts over multiple seasons using the advanced compute capabilities and scale of AWS. Explore how the NFL and AWS have developed techniques for estimating the full-body pose of players during a game and synthesizing data from multiple simultaneous cameras to obtain a full representation of an athlete.

Featured Speaker: Mahendra Bairagi (WW Head Sports Innovations Lab); Chris Boomhower (Machine Learning Engineer); Kevin Song (Data Scientists)

Outdoor demos: Interactive Demos at the AWS Industries Interactive Demo Plaza; Caesars Forum Outdoor Plaza

AWS Sports Bundesliga Free Kick Challenge Interactive Demo
Monday – Wednesday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Thursday: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: AWS Industries Interactive Demo Plaza; Caesars Forum Outdoor Plaza

Join us at the Bundesliga Free Kick Challenge for your chance to be part of this interactive soccer demo. You’ll shoot a free kick, in a digitally highlighted area in the goal, and we’ll track if the shot was made, the shot’s speed, the distance to goal, and the shot trajectory in real-time using AWS technology in partnership with Kinexon. All participants will be able to see how they stack up against other participants and actual professional soccer players.

Additional interactive demos

Basketball Shot Success Predictor Interactive Demo
Monday, 11/28: 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Tuesday, 11/29 and Wednesday, 11/30: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Thursday, 12/1: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: AWS Village; Venetian

Join us at the Basketball Shot Success Predictor demo to experience how AWS Outposts and AWS AI/ML solutions can predict how likely a basketball shot will score even before the basketball hits the hoop.

PGA ShotLink Beta Testing Experience at AWS re:Invent ProAm

At AWS re:Invent ProAm, the PGA TOUR’s Golf Technology team will bring beta technology that the forward-leaning leaders playing the event will be able to experience and evaluate.

In addition to the demo, we will have a full set of ShotLink production trucks on-site that will allow participants to TOUR both our production facility and the supporting network/radar support truck during the event. We will also have our full production staff on site who will be happy to interact with guests and talk through what we are building as well as the way we produce ShotLink scoring solutions today.

Join us in the AWS Sports Lounge

If you are attending in-person, then stop by, relax, and chat with our experts. Ask questions and review demonstrations about how you can build what’s next for sports with AWS. So stop by, take a break, and network with AWS industry subject-matter experts, AWS Partners, and other customers to get the most out of your re:Invent experience.

Monday, 11/28 – Wednesday, 11/30: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Thursday, 12/1: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: AWS Industries Networking Lounges; Caesars Forum Main Hall

Related events

In addition to sessions and events led by AWS Sports, there are many sports-related events happening that may be of interest to those in the industry, or just those passionate about sports.

Related Breakout Sessions

MZ203 – How Prime Video developed, delivers and operates NFL’s Thursday Night Football globally on AWS
ANT341 – How Riot Games processes 20 TB of analytics data daily on AWS
API311 – Building next-gen applications with event-driven architectures (featuring PGA TOUR)
STG215 – Unlocking business value in media archives with Amazon S3 (featuring PGA TOUR)
CMP311 – The future of sport: How Riot Games is reinventing remote esports broadcasts
DPR301 – Living on the edge: Leverage Intel OpenVINO toolkit for AWS DeepRacer
MNE203 – Sky’s journey to migrate live sports and news to AWS
MNE304 – Formula 1 case study: F1TV with AWS media and edge services
ADM301 – Ultra-low latency machine learning at Amazon Ads
CMP212 – Metaverse experiences come to life with Amazon EC2 accelerated computing- customer panel, retail, M&E
FWM315 – Create real-time, event-driven apps with Amazon EventBridge & AWS AppSync
FWM317 – Create real-time, event-driven apps with Amazon EventBridge & AWS AppSync
MNE201 – How A+E Networks built a cloud-based media supply chain for scale & agility
MNE202 – The evolution of post-production on AWS
PRT225 – What can you do with on-demand networking and the AWS Cloud? (sponsored by Lumen)

Related Chalk Talks

MNE204 – End-to-end UHD live streaming
MNE301 – Streamline accessing, monetizing, and distributing your content library
MNE305 – Sports on AWS: Virtualized and remote productions
MNE205 – Making MovieLabs 2030 Vision a reality in AWS
NET312 – HBO Max achieves scale and performance with Amazon CloudFront
NET317 – Common media client data analysis with Amazon CloudFront

Related Workshops

HYB302 – Basketball shot success predictor: Deploy a motion-sensing ML model
MNE302 – Build a complete FAST channel (TV)

Sports Industry Attendee Guide

Download the full AWS Sports Industry Attendee Guide to get further information on industry sessions, activities, and “how to re:Invent.”