The Cloud, Data & CRM Solutions category has been active within pro sports in the US over the past few years, as Amazon Web Services’ deal with the NHL and NFL and Second Spectrum’s partnership with the NBA and MLS made headlines. Last week, MLB and Google Cloud announced the expansion of their partnership that began in 2020, which will see MLB pilot Google Cloud’s media content delivery network (CDN) to continue innovating in the realm of live action, on-demand and archival content.

Not surprisingly, social media posts are the top asset bought by these brands: more than 5.3K posts across 450 deals in the category have engaged 43M followers in the last 12 months, with each deal averaging 12 posts.

The Golden State Warriors had a major hand in these impressive engagement stats, thanks to the team’s partnerships with Oracle and Google Cloud, which saw the Warriors post 635 times for the former and 253 times for the latter in the last year. In the process, they engaged over 15M and 10M followers for Google and Oracle, respectively–making the Warriors responsible for a whopping 60% of the category’s engagement.

Top 5 brands ranked by total deals (Sponsorship & Media)

• Google (Alphabet): 770

• IBM: 100

• Oracle: 97  

• Amazon Web Services: 95

• Google Cloud: 48

Top 5 platforms/assets bought

• Social posts: 38%

• Property entitlements: 36%

• Digital content: 34%

• Television ads: 15%

• Products & services: 13%

Though 45% of Google Cloud’s partnerships are with MLB properties–the “Statcast powered by Google Cloud” is a prominent feature during MLB broadcasts–its 15M-plus social media engagements derived largely from the Golden State Warriors deal. The remainder came primarily from the MLB, totaling 618K followers across 57 posts.

Since 2015, the NFL has used Amazon Web Services (AWS) for its Next Gen Stats platform, which immerses fans in real-time data by analyzing millions of data points down to the millimeter. In the past 12 months, the league’s partnership with AWS generated more than 218K total engagements, of which the New York Giants contributed 116K–53%–with just 7 posts.

AWS also works closely with the NHL, having become the league’s official Cloud, artificial intelligence, and machine learning infrastructure provider in February 2021; since then, it’s introduced stats including face-off probability. In the past 12 months, the NHL’s official Isocial media platforms has posted 24 AWS-sponsored posts, engaging 174K followers. Overall, AWS has garnered 678K likes, shares, and comments across 34 deals and 377 posts in the same period, with the brand’s NFL and NHL partnerships accounting for 58% of this social engagement.