theCUBE + NYSE Wired present the East Coast AI Leaders Executive Series

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Andrew Reich

Sr. Industry Specialist, Media Entertainment, Games & Sports

AWS

play_circle_outline NHL partnership with AWS for video innovation and cloud production

play_circle_outline Live cloud production for broadcasting games and creating new content

play_circle_outline Use of AI and analytics for player insights and fan engagement

play_circle_outline Historic first ever live cloud produced hockey game in North America

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Andrew Reich, AWS

Andrew Reich

Sr. Industry Specialist, Media Entertainment, Games & Sports AWS

TheCUBE covers events in New York City at the NYSE studio, known as theCUBE East. The studio is a point of presence and a super node where various industry specialists gather. Andrew from AWS talks about the partnership with NHL, focusing on using AWS technology to produce more content for fans and grow the game of hockey. The NHL's use of AWS involves running video signals through the cloud, enabling live cloud production by operating and producing broadcasts using cloud technologies and AWS infrastructure. This shift to the cloud has enabled cost savings, s... Read more

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What technology has the NHL been leaning into, and what specific work streams did they focus on when partnering with AWS in 2021? add

What live Cloud production entail? add

What types of analytics are utilized in sports, such as shot and save analytics and face-off probability? add

What are some of the NHL's initiatives for increasing viewership and fan engagement? add

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Andrew Reich, AWS

>> Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's coverage here in New York City. This is the NYSE studio for theCUBE East, our new home on the east coast. This is a super POP. It's our point of presence. It's an access point. It's our super node, our community in New York going back 15 years during the big day days. Now we have a presence in New York. We're going to continue to celebrate that full-time at the 2025. I'm John Furrier, your host of the Cube. Dave Vellante drives down from Boston. We'll be seeing a lot more content out of here. We've got Andrew from AWS here, senior industry specialist, media entertainment, games and sports, works with the NHL who we just did an interview with around their awesome innovation with video in the cloud. Andrew, thanks for coming on TheCUBE. This is our east coast studio. What do you think?

>> Great. It's great.

>> Not too shabby. Better than our Palo Alto one in the middle of Palo Alto with some TVs. This is like-

>> I like the good scenery here. I love it.

>> I was telling the NHL, it's like every day is like the playoffs here. Something going on. A lot of action here, a lot to talk about. Obviously media entertainment in New York's big. NHL really hits a home run here. Mixed metaphor. It scores a goal, I should say. It's a better example, because they're talking about infrastructure trucks running limited capacity. They move to the cloud. They get massive advantage, major change for them. And you guys are enabling that. Makes a lot of sense. Obviously we've been covering Amazon for over a decade and a half. This is a transformation for them. Take us through the Amazon piece of this. What did they do? He was totally stoked about the idea of having more camera angles, coming around the corner. The ability to push one button eliminates some steps, experiment, not be constrained, but how did they pull it off? Take us through the partnership.

>> So the NHL has really leaned in to all the technology leaning into AWS, and I think it's really enabling them to produce and create more content for the fans and grow the game of hockey. When we think back to 2021, when the AWS and NHL partnership kicked off, really the two big work streams that workflows that they leaned into were NHL Edge IQ, so the analytics, and then an encoding and scheduling platform. What that did was it took all six video angles from every arena, brought that video up to AWS, relying heavily on Elemental Media Connect, and out for distribution to team personnel, league personnel, officials, partners of the league broadcasters. So taking these video angles, running them up through AWS and out for distribution. And it was an automated system. So every game, these video signals in the cloud would turn on. After the game, they would turn off. And really what that did from my perspective was it really allowed them to learn the ingest and the distribution pipeline of running video workflows in the cloud. And that really laid the groundwork for them to now take advantage of different types of production workflows. And then on the other side, a lot with NHL Edge IQ, so developing new analytics with AWS to bring more insights to fans about the game of hockey.

>> Live cloud production, just that the phrase is a mind-blowing. Cloud production, video cloud production, I kind of buy that. Now, editing, whatnot. Talking about live production. You guys did... You're doing live broadcasts. Take us through what the live piece, because that's like... This is a glittery game changer for video producers because all that workflow that was manual goes into the cloud. What does that mean, live cloud production, streaming games?

>> So really, and for the end user, live cloud production... If I'm a fan watching at home, I shouldn't really know what live cloud production is. I should be able to watch a game the same way that I would watch a game if it was produced terrestrially. So really what live Cloud production is it's bringing all the video signals up through the cloud, and all of the operations of a broadcast or production, all those operations now, you can operate and produce using cloud technologies. And really from the AWS perspective, we're the infrastructure, so we're allowing a switcher or replay or graphics. All of those softwares are the same. They're just running on AWS infrastructure. So if I'm a graphics operator, I could operate graphics really from wherever because it's not tied to a physical server. So I think really what AWS-

>> So the operator roles don't change.

>> No.

>> Just the mechanism does.

>> Correct. The infrastructure, it's no longer on a physical server. It's not bound to a physical control room or a production truck. The server itself is running mainly on on AWS EC2 instances.

>> So are they streaming live games now in the cloud, or was that the one use case with the Capitals and the Carolina Hurricanes?

>> So on March 22nd, Carolina Hurricanes played the Washington. We ran 12 video signals up through AWS. We were able to create a control room in under three weeks in Secaucus, New Jersey at NHL network. And all the work stations were all powered by AWS. They were the same. The technical director had their switcher. The replay operators had their same replay operations stations, same with graphics. But that game was really groundbreaking, I think, because it showed that, again, to be able to create a control room and under three weeks and all the operators have the same working experience that they usually have was really special, I think, and really game-changing for the industry.

>> Well that's real CapEx. Yeah.

>> Well, it's all... And that's real cost to deploy servers, get all the systems in place. You now replace that with cloud agility.

>> Right.

>> Because when we were testing, we would turn the servers on, and then when we were done, we would serve them off. We would turn them off. So during the... If we did a rehearsal, a game, the previous game, the game in between, no cost was being incurred because all of those servers were turned off. And then the morning of the Capitalist Hurricanes game, we just turned it back on. So moving to that OpEx model really saves a lot of money, and also from a sustainability standpoint, because now you have 20 people that normally could travel or be on site for a game. Now, they don't have to travel. They can stay where they-

>> What's the backhaul from the stadium of the arena to the cloud? Is it satellite or internet? both or-

>> We had a direct connect to run the video signals.

>> Internet, over the internet.

>> So it was using a direct connect... We had a direct connect signal, so that brought the video signals up through AWS into into MediaConnect, and then ultimately all of that video. Normally like you would, you could access... You could

>> That's good .

>> I know that they get a lot of data centers there.

>> It's probably where you did it. All right, now one of the thing they didn't talk about, that's why I wanted to wait for you to come in into theCUBE, because the AI piece is big. I Matt Garman recently. He said AI is a centerpiece of all their strategies. AI is going to be a good opportunity for them with data. They have a lot of data. So how are they using those analytics? What's the role of data? I didn't even bring up the whole IoT thing because I know what you guys are doing with the NFL. We interviewed them in the past. And we know there's a lot of instrumentation going on with the players too. I didn't have time to get into it with them. But again, there's a lot of data coming in, and he was talking about AK coming soon. So this is going to be a fun time if you're techie. If you're a cloud provider, it's going to make you guys work harder, obviously, because with the customer's going.

>> Well, and it's... It's really unique what they're doing too, is they're approaching their data strategy in a couple different ways. So when we think about the analytics, the creation of the analytics that we've worked on with them, it's all different types of analytics. So you've shot and save analytics, which really is just pulling historical data and providing fans with a different view of the different strengths and weaknesses of players and where they're shooting from, or goalies, what are their tendencies, and then when you look at something like Face-off probability where you're using SageMaker and machine learning in more of an AI/ML model to generate probabilities before a face-off takes place. And what I love about that one too is you can see in real time, using the puck and player tracking data, if two players are skating around the circle, you see probabilities for them. And then two other players come in and you see real-time how quick those probabilities are adjusting based on the location of the players. And then we've worked on projected goal rates with them, and now Ice Tilt, which is looking at the momentum of the game and looking at it from that perspective. So really, there's so much right now that we're doing with them.

>> W e did get into the betting side of it, micro betting, which is... I'm like, they weren't really upset because they have betting partners. And so data will be coming. And so latency now becomes a thing, and they want to go zero latency. So it's really low.

>> And that's where the face-off probability at the stadium series last year at MetLife Stadium, when there would be a break in action, and then two players would be ready to take a face-off, and then different players would be skating around, you could see, in real time on the scoreboard, the players and their probabilities adjusting, and as close to real time as you could get. It was so cool to see all that.

>> I think it's going to be a fan explosion. I did a live interview yesterday when the WNBA was here talking about the role of AI and technology in sports. I mentioned NHL actually, along with the NFL. AI changes the game in real time. Halftime adjustment is not a locker room thing in anymore. It's real time now. Also betting. Okay? Fan experience. Camera angles are getting better. Now you guys can take every camera angle into the cloud as one console, mix and match in real time. They were explaining how they could just take social media feeds all doing that, these bespoke jobs and just getting them all done with AI, right? So you're starting to see the merchandising of content, not merchandising like the shirts, like merch, the clips.

>> Absolutely.

>> We're in the merch business of video. I guess we are too.

>> And I think what the NHL has been doing a lot of where I think kind of the roads are converging is this notion of broadcasts. And that was another cool component of March 22nd was not only did we have a main feed of the broadcasts of the Hurricanes Capitals game, but we also had a version NHL Edge unlocked where that was a broadcast entirely focused on analytics. And what that did was it allowed the NHL to experiment with... Let's do just an analytics driven using our puck and player tracking data, NHL Edge IQ analytics.

>> Right. Digital twin.

>> Let's bring all this together, and let's just do a version of a broadcast just focused on the analytics, and that's catering to a different fan. And I think it's allowing fans who are so interested in the numbers to watch the game from that perspective.

>> You guys could literally create a digital twin of a hockey game and simulate based upon stats, and with AI, make it look real. Imagine having different players, an all-star game that never happened happen.

>> Well, they're doing... They're doing other-

>> That would be very cool.

>> Well, with their broadcasts, they've done with big city greens and multiverses where they turn their players into characters from TV shows. Again, that's growing the game, and it's bringing in more fans for them. And I think all of this technology is enabling that, and it's ultimately leading back to the end consumer.

>> All right, let's get into the Amazon value properties. I want to get... How costly is this? Compare the scope of cost versus say their old approach. Because they were outlining the old trucks, HD . All this was all HD, cable, now cloud. And you guys, Amazon, has experienced across many sports. We've covered those stories, but what's the price? If I want to run my video, live video production in the cloud, how does it work? How do I get started? Just hit the console and just go spin up some live media media encoders? How does it work? What's the experience of the operator developer?

>> So I think there are many different approaches that we're taking with-

>> I can't just put my credit card down, or I typically could.

>> Well, I think there are different approaches to getting to a full live cloud production. I think when you look at what the NHL did, they started by focusing on the ingest and distribution. And even though while they did the March 22nd game, you had asked what else are they doing with the cloud, one really cool story is in the Stanley Cup finals, they had an American sign language alternate broadcast. And while that wasn't produced in the cloud, the video signals that were being used to produce that were running through MediaConnect. So they're taking bits and pieces of it to say, how can this benefit us now. Even if we're not going to do a full production in the cloud tomorrow, how can we use the AWS technologies to create more content? And your question about cost, I think the biggest thing for me is moving to an OpEx model. So what we touched on before where you don't have to purchase a giant server for a switcher. You can pay as you go. It's a pay as you go model. So if you only do three games, you're really only paying for three games. You're not... So the fact that it's an OpEx model, I think that's a huge advantage. And also, when you think about traveling your staff, now you have operators that can switch a game from home, and they don't have to travel as much. And going back to the sustainability, what that's doing for our environment, for that game, we reduced 2.05 metric tons of carbon, which was significant. So I think-

>> Well, you guys are doing a great job. I'm going to investigate and do a deeper dive on what's up, what's coming up. Certainly Reinvent is coming up. And congratulations for the first ever live cloud produced hockey game.

>> Appreciate it. Thank you.

>> And that's a notable... That's historic. I don't think that's been done before. Has it been done? Is that first?

>> At least in North America.

>> For the NHL?

>> Yeah, for the NHL and the professional sports.

>> And I love the NHL's got this test market in Canada. I don't know why they do it in Canada. It's biased market. They already love hockey. So maybe that was the test with the whole whip around games, like the red zone for NFL, for NHL.

>> Yes. We're doing a coast to coast show on Thursdays, and then Monday night Hockey on Mondays.

>> I want that every night.

>> Yeah. You never know.

>> Who doesn't like to watch goals, and/or big hits, and/or good moves. So Andrew, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate you.

>> Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

>> Okay. What do you think of our new studio? Pretty hot?

>> Awesome.

>> Pretty good? All right.

>> Looks great.

>> This is theCUBE studio. Amazon Web Services, live cloud production. You're seeing NHL live streaming games in the cloud. Truck rolls might be the thing of the past. 8K cameras are coming, all kinds of way to merchandise content, a new way. You're starting to see new channels, unlimited channels. And by the way, the role of the fan as a producer might come into the fold too. Again, so much going on in the content business. If you're in the media entertainment or a creator, the world right now. It's going to be a great time. I'm John Furrier with SiliconANGLE and theCUBE here in our east coast studios in the NYSC. Thanks for watching.