Welcome to a New Generation of Entertainment: Amazon Web Services and the Normalization of Big Data Analytics and RFID Tracking

Abstract

The 2017 partnership between the National Football League (NFL) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) promises novel forms of cutting-edge real-time statistical analysis through the use of both radio frequency identification (RFID) chips and Amazon’s cloud-based machine learning and data-analytics tools. This use of RFID is heralded for its possibilities: for broadcasters, who are now capable of providing more thorough analysis; for fans, who can experience the game on a deeper analytical level using the NFL’s Next Gen Stats; and for coaches, who can capitalize on data-driven pattern recognition to gain a statistical edge over their competitors in real-time. In this paper, we respond to calls for further examination of the discursive positionings of RFID and big data technologies (Frith 2015; Kitchin and Dodge 2011). Specifically, this synthesis of RFID and cloud computing infrastructure via corporate partnership provides an alternative discursive positioning of two technologies that are often part of asymmetrical relations of power (Andrejevic 2014). Consequently, it is critical to examine the efforts of Amazon and the NFL to normalize pervasive spatial data collection and analytics to a mass audience by presenting these surveillance technologies as helpful tools for accessing new forms of data-driven knowing and analysis.