NBA boosts AI innovation by migrating to Azure for security, scalability, and speed

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a global sports and media powerhouse, dedicated to growing and celebrating the game of basketball. With millions of fans worldwide, the NBA has a mission to bring fans closer to the game they love through various platforms, including events, broadcasts, and digital experiences.

To continue delivering more personalized fan experiences, the NBA needed to harness vast amounts of data throughout the organization. However, the scale, complexity, and security required for next-generation technologies compelled the league to explore new opportunities.

“Our broadcast engineers, operations teams, and developers rely on data to make informed decisions. Unifying this data to deliver innovation is the foundation to our success,” says Keith Cafferty, Associate Vice President of DTC Product, Technology & Operations at the NBA.

Laying the foundation for innovation by colocating in cloud

To overcome these challenges, the NBA migrated its IT estate to Microsoft Azure, unifying its data in the cloud to more easily build and run AI models. With the migration to Azure, the NBA can colocate data, applications, and infrastructure, accelerating AI advancements, unlocking data insights, and making faster time to market possible for new experiences and innovative features.

The NBA’s collaboration with Microsoft gave the league the agility to scale resources on demand during major events, ensuring smooth performance during peak times. If viewership spikes on any platform, the NBA can quickly pivot, providing fans with uninterrupted access to real-time action. The migration involved modernizing its code and data using Windows Server on Azure, Azure Blob Storage, Azure App Service, and Azure SQL Database, boosting productivity and scalability.

“On Azure, our teams are capturing, storing, and analyzing data to build products and distribute statistics and analytics throughout our entire ecosystem, including the NBA App, insights for coaches and players, and our direct-to-consumer platform and products,” says Ken DeGennaro, Senior Vice President of Media Operations and Technology at the NBA.

Security and resilience are paramount. By using AI-infused cloud-native services, the NBA is innovating within a trusted environment that offers built-in controls across data, networking, and apps. In addition, Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a single pane of glass for visibility into the NBA’s cloud security posture.

Future-proofing the business for its global audience

Since migrating to Azure, the NBA has experienced numerous positive outcomes. The unified platform supports efficient resource management, empowering developers to use AI solutions more securely and quickly. The NBA’s technology investments are future-proof, driving continuous innovation throughout the organization.

The impact on fan engagement is significant. By unlocking data to power their AI applications, the NBA can deliver personalized content and experiences, enhancing fans’ interactions with the game. The seamless application of AI tools to the NBA’s platform is transformative, because the league can localize highlights, translate content into multiple languages, and create unique experiences for fans around the world.

“The impact of using Azure for our global audience has been tremendous, as we now engage with fans in 60 languages in more than 200 countries, deepening the personal connection to the NBA,” says Jon Hurwitz, Director of Product, Basketball Data, Search & AI at the NBA.

With plans to continue innovating throughout the organization, the NBA has launched several new AI-driven features, including NBA Insights, which highlights the “why” behind key game moments, and NBA Stats, which analyzes on-court player movements to deepen a fan’s understanding of the game.

By migrating to Azure, the NBA has addressed its infrastructure challenges and positioned itself at the forefront of innovation with AI. The transformation of its digital ecosystem is bringing fans closer to the game they love and ensuring a bright future for basketball.