The TL;DR (Watch, or Listen 😉)
- Data without story is noise. The right visual, at the right moment, can trigger real fan emotion.
- Cloud makes it possible. Real-time production, from anywhere.
- UX makes it scalable. Simpler tools = more stories.
- AI makes it dynamic. Personalized broadcasts, smarter highlights, better context.
What Happens When Sports Production Meets the Cloud?
Live from NAB in Las Vegas, Tagboard CEO Nathan Peterson sat down with Julie Souza, Global Head of Sports at AWS, for a conversation that cracked open what it really means to tell powerful stories with data in the modern sports world.
Spoiler: It’s not about cramming more stats into a screen, it’s about making fans care more than ever before.
From Chuck & Shaq Tweets to Full-On Data Immersion
What started as a way to throw tweets on screen (“I want this graphic and this stat, and I want it live”) evolved into a full-blown rethink of sports storytelling. Today, producers can pipe in real-time player tracking data, social chatter, and even augmented reality, all from the cloud.
And it works. Julie gave a shoutout to the NHL’s data-forward alternate broadcast, where simple visuals like a player’s time on ice shifting from green to red had her screaming “shift change!” at her screen. She didn’t care who won the game, but the data made her feel something. That’s the magic.
Search Smarter, Tell Better Stories
Imagine having 30 years of sports content, from player stats to historical broadcast footage, at your fingertips. Now imagine being able to search it like you would Google. That’s what the PGA Tour did.
Julie spotlighted their use of AWS Bedrock and natural language search to surface media gold. Want to find the last time someone birdied the 13th at the Shriners Open? Just ask. Up comes the footage, the stat line, the context, all ready to drop into your next segment.
This is AI as a storytelling co-pilot: surfacing relevant moments, finding narrative threads, and making it easy for lean teams to deliver richer context in real time. For producers, it’s not just about “what happened”, it’s why it matters now.
The Final Word
“It’s making the content and the live viewing experience even more interesting and engaging. We used to have a very passive viewing experience and now it’s more lean in,” said Souza. “You have analytics coming in, UGC content coming in, and fans are engaging with this content in a way that is actually accelerating and driving fandom, which everybody in the industry wants”.