How AWS Africa Can Grow Innovative Infrastructures For Sports in Africa
When the France National Football Team won the 2018 FIFA World Cup, it sparked reactions from the international sports world. Not because it was the first time Les Bleus won the World Cup in 20 years or how dominant they looked in the final against Croatia.
It was the number of athletes with African roots on the 23-man roster.
Fifteen players, the majority of which were key players, had connections to the continent. Stars like Kylian Mpbappe, Paul Pogba, Benjamin Mendy, and Thomas Lemar highlighted the France National Team and gave much pride to the African community around the world, going as far as claiming the team as an African football club.
For me, it left a question that I searched for answers to: why can’t these players of African descent play for countries within the African borders?
Which led me to another question: if black football players are becoming stars in European leagues — increasing their global presence — where are the African Leagues with these same footprints in the international landscape of sports media?
I continued to fall deeper into the rabbit hole over the years, searching for logistical answers for these shortcomings. The consistent response I found was corruption, which troubles most African governments and industries. For sports, it’s no different, especially in football.
FIFA official, Fatma Samoura, will control the Confederation of African Football over the next six months due to corruption within the organization. FIFA will manage the media rights and disperse the benefits to the 56 nations part of the CAF. Some feel this is a form of “colonization” by the governing body; others, like the Nigerian President of Football, believe it will generate more money for their countries.
This is an example of how an inadequate infrastructure can be turbulent and have a negative impact on growth in African sports . Still, the potential exists, the reason why companies invest in the motherland’s sports climate.
With the introduction of AWS Africa, it gives local entrepreneurs opportunities to build and design proper infrastructures around Africa’s most prominent sports leagues. Amazon Web Services have already influenced the sports world, revolutionizing stats, broadcasting, and player development.
By taking advantage of these services, sports in Africa can become a more considerable export for African nations, delivered by home-grown companies.
Live Streaming
If you’ve been living under a rock, then you probably wouldn’t understand how important live streaming has become in sports. With cable television becoming a dying industry, sports leagues all around the world are investing in live streaming to present their product to consumers. ESPN, Bleacher Report, and the newly London-based company DAZN are becoming power players in streaming.
Each of those companies invested in Africa. ESPN recently acquired the media rights to the NBA in Africa, broadcasting games to cable customers in the sub-Saharan region. DAZN recently acquired the rights to the Africa Cup of Nations for its online-streaming customers. Both companies are beneficiaries of parent companies with limitless cash.
Even without those billionaires-parents, it is possible to design a sports live-streaming company to broadcast sports in Africa thanks to AWS products.
With an AWS Edge location in Cape Town — and availability zones for AWS Africa — content producers can reach end-users within that network. Matches can be produced and distributed with reduced latency — eliminating delays from high-volume traffic. Products such as AWS Elemental MediaLive and AWS Elemental MediaPackage store and process content before distributing to the end user live with (CDN) Amazon CloudFront.
The NFL used this technology to stream the 2020 NFL Draft after COVID-19 restricted events with large gatherings. pandemic. Initially, the draft would be held in Las Vegas, but a quick pivot formed the league's first-ever virtual draft. The NFL, with the help of AWS, was able to broadcast over 100 athletes “get that call” from an NFL team. The event was a success and now has the NFL thinking of other ways to use live streaming.
These products enable producers to deliver cost-efficient, world-class, and innovative streaming content. AWS Africa equips local entrepreneurs with the tools to create independent broadcasting companies to combat the exploitation of media rights revenue. Most dollars from media rights are lost in the pockets of officials, leaving sports leagues and organizations strapped for cash.
Local companies streaming sports in Africa can create agreements with leagues and organizations for media rights without the need for unethical officials from governing bodies.
Player Development
Player development is significant for any sport or league to grow. Without the development of players, sports will die. Starting at the youth level, developing skills and talents are what create global phenoms like LeBron James, Christiano Ronaldo, and African Rugby star Siya Kolisi.
Kolisi was born in the Zwide Township of South Africa, entrenched in poverty. He is the victim of child hunger and severe living conditions. His talents on the rugby field earned him a scholarship to the prestigious rugby program at Grey High School. At Grey, he developed into one of the world’s best rugby players and the first black captain of the South Africa Rugby team, also known as the Springboks.
Kolisi was blessed with the opportunity to be trained and developed inside an exceptional infrastructure, but everyone else from his circumstance and environment isn’t as “lucky.”
AWS partnered with Six Nations Rugby, creating a set of new advanced stats for fans. The Guinness Six Nation Championship is considered to be the greatest rugby championship in the world, and with AWS as the technology partner, it will transform the sport and keep it growing with the digital times.
AWS established relationships with the NFL with Next-Gen Stats. NGS gives fans a different look at the game, displaying players’ speed on touchdown players, velocity on throws, and force used on a punishing hit. Stats are created with AWS Machine Learning technology and shared with the audience during live games.
While both entities use Machine Learning to create a better fan experience, it also gives insight into player development. The Seattle Seahawks have doubled down and made AWS their official artificial intelligence provider. The Seahawks will track the player’s progress during practices using AWS AI and Machine Learning technology. Their findings will help coaches pick the right plays and players for any situation, thanks to AWS cloud storage services.
Machine Learning provides a unique opportunity for non-profit organizations to help those in impoverished areas by providing data for less fortunate athletes. Distributing data on these athletes to rugby unions in Oceania, South America, and Europe places a microscope on players and communities with economic hardships. Lack of exposure is another problem that hinders sports in Africa, but as we head into the fourth industrial revolution, data and technology will be the solution.
Economic Growth
Sports could be considered the United States’ most valuable export. It is undoubtedly the most significant cultural export, with most of the world hunting for American content. The big five sports leagues in North America are global powers thanks to a relentless pursuit to brand their association internationally. Four leagues based on American soil are listed as one of the most profitable leagues in the world, combining for $34.8 billion (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA).
Globally, brands spent over $62 billion on sponsorships between 2007–2018, which goes to teams, leagues, and players generally.
Investing in African sports culture can subdue that colonization feeling. Nigeria has placed constraints on acquiring media rights, claiming it as monopolized. This unprecedented move leaves the door open for smaller, independent streaming providers. Establishing companies and organizations to facilitate and design a reliable infrastructure around the sports leagues in Africa.
Leagues in the South African region, like the Premier Soccer League, can benefit significantly from independent infrastructures built in the AWS Africa region. And those who are willing to invest the time into adequately designing the infrastructure can reap moral benefits by helping their country.
