Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1301581
3 INTRODUCTION If you grew up in a football family like I did, you might already know that the NFL is America's largest sports organization, with over 188 million fans worldwide. We're a big content creator—NFL games accounted for 38 of last year's top 50 telecasts. We're also a big data creator— every week our league generates 3terabytes, equivalent to 1,500 hours, of data. As CIO of the NFL, I'm responsible for ensuring we leverage our data to create the best and most efficient technology solutions that will evolve our game, engage our fans, and protect and develop our players. Next Gen Stats, one of our machine learning projects—is the product of our working partnership with Amazon Michelle McKenna Senior Vice President and CIO, NFL Transforming a 100-year-old league is not an easy job. Likewise, the NFL's machine learning journey has not been a straightforward path. " We're excited to share this portion of our journey with you and help you see a little bit of what we've been up to at the NFL. " Web Services. Working with AWS just made sense because of their flexibility, security, and ability to scale. AWS has the broadest offering of cloud services for our builders to build upon—giving us the ideal platform to grow. For me, getting started with machine learning was not a question of "why" but of "how." I knew machine learning would transform our company. I also knew our technology projects needed to be supported at the top level of the organization to get both the business and technical teams working together and sharing the same priorities. Implementing machine learning benefits the entire company, not just the technology department. Machine learning has made the NFL's production teams more efficient— transforming previously tedious roles like video labeling into an automated, streamlined process. Coaches can use the technology to officiate playbook formations and automatically draw out plays, saving them time on the sidelines. With the power of machine learning on AWS, we can better understand fan engagement, how a game is presented, the potential impact of adjusting the rules of play, how the game is called, and player performance and safety. Next Gen Stats allows us to use this real-time data to engage, inform, and empower fans in new and unique ways. We're working to build a better playing, coaching, and viewing experience. Thanks to AWS machine learning, we're revolutionizing a 100-year-old league.