The Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) has named Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its official generative AI provider.
As part of the league’s long-term innovation strategy, the partnership, which originally began in 2020, now has an added focus on utilising generative AI to accelerate innovation.
Under the expanded agreement, new projects have been identified to further drive innovation and transformation along the entire DFL value chain.
DFL CEO, Steffen Merkel, emphasised that the partnership ‘sets the standard’ in terms of innovation in global football.
“The focus is always on additional benefits for media partners, fans and the DFL itself,” he stated.
“We are very pleased to continue this successful partnership in the long term with the world’s largest cloud provider, including leveraging the potential of Generative AI to accelerate innovation for German professional football.”
The aforementioned projects are focused on three core areas for the DFL: fan experience (e.g. automated translation, personalisation and localisation), media production (e.g. use of cloud infrastructure in media production and the moving image archive) and data services (e.g. automated recognition of match events, applying the statistics portfolio developed for the Bundesliga to other leagues).
The announcement was made during SportsInnovation – a sports technology trade fair in Düsseldorf, Germany.
At the event, the DFL subsidiary Sportec Solutions, in collaboration with AWS demonstrated how it leverages generative AI and cutting-edge large language models (LLMs) to create dynamic, real-time match commentary in written form and in multiple languages.
“We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with the DFL, a leader in sports innovation,” Matt Garman, Senior Vice President, Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS.
“Four years ago, we set out to help the DFL leverage technology to connect with fans on a personal level, unlock new statistical insights, and transform internal and broadcast operations.
“The work we are demonstrating today at SportsInnovation lays the foundation for a more personalised viewing experience for Bundesliga fans around the world in the language of their choice.”
