NBA的数字化转型将改变体育赛事体验

美国国家篮球协会(NBA)向Azure云的迁移有助于改善球迷体验和比赛表现，因为分析和人工智能辅助工具旨在释放数据的全部潜力。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

自从NBA在2020年启动数字化转型以来，由于云、分析、人工智能和计算机视觉技术的加速部署，NBA在数字技术方面的全场紧锣紧节奏已经彻底改变了球迷、球员和球队的体验。

NBA执行副总裁兼首席技术官克里希纳·巴格瓦图拉(Krishna Bhagavathula)曾是NBC新闻的首席技术官，在NBA工作了近六年。他表示，去年10月推出的NBA联盟通流媒体应用程序，以及与鹰眼创新公司(Hawk-Eye Innovations)在3D光学跟踪方面的新合作伙伴关系，表明了NBA数字化变革的先进步伐。

“我们正在努力为我们的球迷创造一种真正与众不同的篮球体验，”博加瓦图拉说，并指出迄今为止的投资回报非常可观。“这一季的视频浏览量约为10亿次，是去年的三倍多。”

CTO补充说，NBA本赛季的订阅用户增长了50%，收视率增长了52%，他将这些胜利归功于NBA与微软的紧密合作以及三年前开始认真实施的三分行动计划。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

6月1日NBA总决赛开赛时，Bhagavathula在丹佛接受电话采访时表示:“我们计划推出几项重大举措，包括推出League Pass旗舰产品，在云基础设施上部署流媒体产品和(相关的)新产品，并意识到是时候让我们的整个应用程序堆栈现代化了。”

除了消费者体验之外，NBA对微软Azure的拥抱也启动了联盟内部应用程序向混合云/本地混合的转变，其现代化努力导致300到400个应用程序迁移到云上，而其他需要更低灵活性和可扩展性的应用程序仍留在数据中心。

博伽瓦图拉云游戏计划的第三个支柱包括开发高级应用程序，不仅适用于球迷，还适用于裁判、球员、球队和教练，他们都更依赖数据来提高他们的表现。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

一、数字化、人工智能的驱动力

当Bhagavathula第一次到来时，NBA刚刚开始云迁移，像许多企业一样，继续管理一个内部部署的基础设施，这些基础设施充满了在虚拟机上运行数千个工作负载的服务器。但这一切都变了。

“我们有一个高度虚拟化的数据中心，”这位首席技术官谈到五六年前的情况时说。“我们非常专注于创造一种真正令人愉快的、由云驱动的直接面向消费者的体验。”

与NFL一样，NBA首席技术官也选择与微软合作，利用微软的Azure云平台。Bhagavathula表示，该平台包含了构建NBA流媒体平台所需的所有数字组件，同时还提供了一个云数据湖和机器学习模型，NBA可以利用这些模型开发下一代应用程序。

NBA应用程序于2022年推出，是一款免费应用程序，为球迷整合了众多个性化服务，包括与社交媒体的增强集成，以及通过基于订阅的联盟通行证(League Pass)提供基本版和高级版的直播游戏。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

基于人工智能的“For You”应用程序根据球迷的喜好提供个性化内容，并针对每位消费者提供球队的实时视频集锦。另一款名为NBA ID的新应用程序提供会员专属体验、比赛门票赠品、个性化内容，以及对全明星选秀和其他NBA相关问题的增强投票。

Bhagavathula强调了去年联盟通行证的可用性，这是NBA向前迈出的重要一步，但他也很快指出，Azure分析和人工智能的使用越来越多，为NBA员工、球队和球员提供内容和新的数字机会。

Bhagavathula将其称为REPS(裁判参与和表现系统)的应用程序的开发“专门用于帮助裁判和管理层评估、合作，并定期关注运动员的表现，”CTO说。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

Bhagavathula还提到了几个机器学习模型的发展，这些模型评估了“客户流失指标”，即球迷对NBA产品的参与度，以及一个“游戏推荐模型”，该模型依赖于球迷的行为和应用程序的使用，以改善每个球迷的个性化和定制化。

他说:“我们使用的功能可以让我们了解隐性和显性偏好，这样我们就可以根据每个球迷的喜好设计出一个个性化的推荐模型。”他补充说，NBA“将目标锁定在那些有较高获胜倾向的球迷身上，这样他们就会越来越多地使用这款应用。”

NBA云湖中不断积累的数据也从NBA商店和商业合作伙伴(如Fanatics和Ticketmaster)那里收集并提供给他们，球迷调查数据也是如此。首席技术官表示，这是建立存储库计划的一部分，以便为所有各方创建下一代人工智能和基于分析的功能。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

二、将性能提升到一个新的水平

至于NBA球队，Bhagavathula提到了CourtOptix，这是一个跟踪和分析球场上的动作的应用程序。这个工具也是在Azure上开发的，它为每个团队免费打包数据，并分发给他们，以改进他们的比赛。他说:“每场比赛结束后，团队都会获得数据缓存，然后可以利用这些数据获得额外的见解和统计数据，用于他们自己的分析。”CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

这类与体育相关的分析项目正在极大地改变各种专业运动的比赛方式，包括网球，国际网球联合会(International tennis Federation)正在利用计算机视觉来帮助提高运动员的表现。

IDC分析师克雷格•鲍尔斯(Craig Powers)认为，这种趋势还看不到尽头。

鲍尔斯说:“NFL和NBA的数据改变了体育运动的方式。“在美国国家橄榄球联盟中，曾经被认为是冒险的策略现在已经成为常态——比如在第四次进攻时采取行动，而不是在场上踢球或下注。这是分析的产物——分析了NFL几十年的每场比赛数据，并为每个决定分配概率和得分值。”

与国际网球联合会一样，NBA也认为传感器、摄像头、分析和人工智能的使用将对提高球员、球队和裁判的表现产生重大影响。Bhagavathula表示，虽然现在的玩家不会在真人游戏中佩戴传感器，但可穿戴技术和新型物联网传感器的引入无疑会在未来几年影响数据收集和玩家的表现。

例如，NBA与鹰眼的合作将产生更详细的数据，球员和球队将使用这些数据来改进他们的比赛和制定比赛策略。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

首席技术官说:“它本质上使用骨骼跟踪技术来评估运动员跳得多高，投篮时的身体姿势，或者他们是如何用脚踝着地的。”“我们认为这些实证数据实际上会让人们对篮球有更深入的了解。”

很明显，人工智能和云计算等先进数字技术的释放将继续改变球队、球员和球迷参与不断发展的篮球比赛的方式。篮球比赛曾经只是一个球、两个篮筐和高度忙碌的球员。

数字技术在球馆的引入，如非接触式小卖部，以及NBA顶级投篮(作为数字篮球卡出售的不可替代代币)的诞生，对商品销售和篮球经济产生了巨大的影响。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

IDC的鲍尔斯认为，越来越多地使用分析、人工智能和传感器来制定下一代比赛计划、编制名单、监控球员的健康状况、安排球员的可用性以及管理伤病，这将永远改变比赛。

“在NBA，我们看到三分球越来越受重视，而中距离跳投却不被看好。为什么?因为球队对场上每次投篮的价值有了更好的理解，”鲍尔斯说。“NBA更进一步，使用视频来跟踪每次传球和投篮的准确位置。教练和球员可以更具体地确定自己的优势和劣势，这就决定了进攻和防守的方式。AI使用这些数据来推荐特定的玩家对局和战术。”

虽然Bhagavathula没有对NBA的生成式人工智能计划发表评论，但人工智能大师Tiago Cardoso表示，引入大型语言模型(llm)，如GPT，有可能进一步改变比赛和粉丝体验。

“大型模型可以执行通用任务，因此它们可以识别玩家，理解行动和策略。它们将能够识别观众对比赛的投入程度，并能以文本或语音评论的形式表达所有这些信息”——卡多索认为这只需要几年的时间，并补充说，法学模型有一天可以用来对过去所有电视转播的比赛进行分类，根据提示生成定制的集束，比如“给我看勒布朗·詹姆斯和迈克尔·乔丹做同样扣篮的视频，”卡多索说。CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

而这一切都是由精心策划的信息技术基础实现的。

英文原文：

The NBA’s digital transformation is a game-changer

The National Basketball Association’s move to Azure cloud is helping improve fan experience and in-game performance due to analytics- and AI-assisted tools aimed at unlocking data’s full potential.

The NBA’s full-court press on digital technologies has revolutionized the fan, player, and team experience, thanks to accelerated deployment of cloud, analytics, AI. And computer vision technologies since the association launched its digital transformation in 2020.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

NBA EVP and CTO Krishna Bhagavathula, a former NBC News CTO who has been with the National Basketball Association for almost six years, says the launch last October of the NBA League Pass streaming application along with a new partnership with Hawk-Eye Innovations for 3D optical tracking demonstrates the advanced pace of digital change happening in the NBA.

“We’re trying to create a truly differentiated basketball experience for our fans,” Bhagavathula says. Noting the return on investment to date has been significant. “We got about one billion video views this season, which is more than triple last year’s total.”CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

The NBA has also enjoyed a 50% growth in subscribers and 52% increase in viewership this season

The NBA has also enjoyed a 50% growth in subscribers and 52% increase in viewership this season, the CTO adds, attributing the wins to the NBA’s tight partnership with Microsoft and its three-point action plan that began in earnest three years ago.

“We had a few major initiatives that we were planning, including the flagship launch of League Pass, deploying the streaming product and [associated] new products on a cloud infrastructure and realizing it was time to modernize our entire application stack,” Bhagavathula said during a telephone interview from Denver on June 1 when the NBA Finals kicked off.

Aside from the consumer experience, the NBA’s embrace of Microsoft Azure also initiated a transformation of the association’s internal applications to a hybrid cloud/on-premises mix, with its modernization efforts resulting in between 300 and 400 apps migrating to the cloud while others requiring less flexibility and scalability have remained in the data center.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

The third pillar of Bhagavathula’s cloud game plan includes the development of advanced applications not just for fans but for referees, players, teams, and coaches. All of whom rely more on data to improve their performance.

The drive for digital, AI

When Bhagavathula first arrived, the NBA was just beginning its cloud migration and. Like many enterprises, continued to manage an on-prem infrastructure filled with servers running thousands of workloads on virtual machines. But that’s all changed.

“We had a data center that was heavily virtualized.” The CTO says of the state of play five or six years ago. “We were very focused on creating a truly delightful direct to consumer experience powered by the cloud.”

Like the NFL, the NBA CTO opted to partner with Microsoft to leverage its Azure cloud platform. Which Bhagavathula says contained all the digital components necessary to build the association’s streaming platform. While providing a cloud data lake and machine learning models the NBA could capitalize on for next-generation applications.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

The NBA App, which launched in 2022, is a free application that consolidates a multitude of personalization services for fans. Including enhanced integration with social media and live games streamed over the subscription-based League Pass. Which offers basic and premium versions.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

Azure AI-based “For You” app offers personalized content based on fan preferences as well as real-time video highlights of teams targeted at each consumer.

Another new application, called NBA ID, offers members-only experiences, game ticket giveaways, personalized content. And enhanced voting for All-Star picks and other NBA-related issues.

Bhagavathula highlights the availability of League Pass within the last year as a major step forward for the NBA. But he is also quick to point out the increasing use of Azure analytics and AI to provide content and new digital opportunities for NBA staff, teams, and players.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

The development of an app Bhagavathula refers to as REPS. A referee engagement and performance system, is “specially designed to aid referees and management to evaluate, collaborate, and regularly focus on athletic performance,” the CTO says.

Bhagavathula also cites the development of several machine learning models that evaluate “customer churn metrics” for how engaged fans are with the NBA’s products and a “game recommendation model” that relies on fan behavior and usage of the application to improve the personalization and customization for each fan.

“The features we are using gives us a sense of both implicit and explicit preferences so we can come up with a recommendation model that’s personalized on a per-fan basis,” he says, adding that the NBA then “targets fans who have a high propensity score to win with those recommendations so they are increasingly engaged with the app.”CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

The data continuously amassing in the NBA’s cloud lake is also collected from and made available to the NBA store and to merchandising partners. Such as Fanatics and Ticketmaster, as is fan survey data. It’s all part of a plan to build up a repository to enable the creation of next-gen AI- and analytics-based features for all parties, the CTO says.

Taking performance to the next level

As for the NBA’s teams, Bhagavathula points to CourtOptix, an application that tracks and analyzes action on the court. The tool, also developed on Azure, packages up data for each team free of charge and distributes it to them to improve their game. “After each game, the teams get a cache of the data and can then use this to gain additional insights and stats for their own analysis,” he says.

Such sports-related analytics initiatives are significantly altering how professional sports are played across a range of disciplines, including tennis, where the International Tennis Federation is leveraging computer vision to help enhance player performance.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

Craig Powers, an analyst at IDC, sees no end in sight to that trend.

“Data in the NFL and NBA has changed the way the sports have been played,” Powers says. “In the NFL, strategies that were once thought to be risky are now the norm —. Such as going for it on 4th down versus kicking field goals or punting. This is the product of analytics — taking decades of NFL play-by-play data and assigning probabilities and point values to each decision.”

Like the International Tennis Federation, the NBA is betting that the increased use of sensors, cameras, analytics. And AI will have a major impact on enhancing player, team, and officiating performance. While players today do not wear sensors during live action games. The introduction of wearable technologies and new types of IoT sensors will no doubt impact data collection and player performance in the years ahead, Bhagavathula says.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

The NBA’s partnership with Hawk-Eye, for instance, will yield far more detailed data that will be used by players and teams to improve their play and plan strategies for games.

“It essentially uses skeletal tracking technology to evaluate how high an athlete is jumping. Their body posture when making a shot or how they land on their ankle,” the CTO says. “We think this empirical data will actually unlock insight into basketball.”

It is crystal clear that the unleashing of advanced digital technologies such as AI and cloud computing will continue to change how teams, players, and fans participate in the evolving game of basketball — once simply played with a single ball, two hoops, and high hustle players.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

The introduction of digital technologies at arenas, such as contactless concession stands, and the creation of NBA Top Shot — nonfungible tokens sold as digital basketball cards — are having an enormous impact on merchandising and the basketball economy.

IDC’s Powers believes increasing use of analytics, AI, and sensors to build next-generation game plans, assemble rosters, monitor players’ health, schedule player availability, and manage injuries has changed the game forever.

“In the NBA, we’ve seen the three-point shot rise in prominence as the midrange jumper is frowned upon. Why? Because teams have a better understanding of the value of each shot on the floor,” Powers says. “The NBA has taken it a step further by using video to track the exact spot every pass and shot is taken. Coaches and players can more specifically identify their strengths and weaknesses, and this dictates how offenses run and defenses defend. AI uses this data to recommend specific player matchups and tactics.”CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

While Bhagavathula did not provide comment on the NBA’s plans for generative AI, AI guru Tiago Cardoso

While Bhagavathula did not provide comment on the NBA’s plans for generative AI. AI guru Tiago Cardoso, group product manager at Hyland Software, which counts Formula 1 as a partner, says the introduction of large language models (LLMs). Such as GPT, have the potential to transform the game and fan experience further.

“Large models can perform generic tasks, so they could identify players, understand actions, tactics. They would be able to recognize how engaged the crowd would be with a play, and it can express all that in the form of text or voice commentary” — a reality Cardoso suggests is just a few years out, adding that LLMs could one day be used to catalog all past televised games to generate tailored highlight compilations based on prompts such as “Show me videos of LeBron James and [Michael] Jordan doing the same dunks,” Cardoso says.CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）

And it’s all made possible by a foundation of well-orchestrated information technology.

本文由CXO UNION-CXO联盟（cxounion.cn）转载而成，来源于cio.com；编辑/翻译：CXO UNIONCXO联盟小O/IT经理人联盟。

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