NCAA heads to the cloud with Google

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has entered into a wide-ranging partnership with multinational technology company Google.

The multi-year deal names Google Cloud as the official cloud provider of the NCAA.

The partnership is designed to provide NCAA colleges, universities, teams and fans with greater access to statistics and data, with more than 80 years’ worth of game and competition information to be migrated to Google Cloud.

Google Cloud Platform services such as BigQuery, Cloud Spanner, Datalab, Cloud ML and Cloud Dataflow will power the analysis of NCAA data, which will allow fans and NCAA members to assess team and player performance. The NCAA will also use the data to create analysis workflows.

In addition to the multi-year technology agreement, Google Cloud will become the official NCAA cloud partner, with the relationship tipping off during the 2017-18 Division I men’s and women’s basketball seasons. NCAA fans, players, and commentators will be able to experience new advancements in data analytics and insights during and after the March Madness event.

“Google Cloud will allow us to migrate decades of historical sports data,” NCAA chief information officer Judd Williams said. “We’ll work with Google Cloud’s team to create new ways that fans will be able to access and search data surrounding March Madness and more, and we will continue to discuss data-driven strategies across multiple content platforms that will enhance digital experiences in other areas.”

Tariq Shaukat, president of global alliances and industry platforms at Google Cloud, added: “By leveraging Google Cloud’s expertise in data analytics, machine learning, and AI, the NCAA will find new ways to enhance decision-making capabilities across multiple athletic programs – from the selection and seeding process to programming.

“We’re excited to be part of the NCAA’s digital transformation where they can use data and deep insights to better engage with millions of fans, nearly half-million college athletes, and over 19,000 teams that make up the NCAA.”

The deal, Google Cloud’s first major corporate partnership, was agreed in collaboration with NCAA rights partners Turner Sports and CBS Sports.