Future Ideas for German Professional Football: The “Bundesliga Hackathon” by DFL, AWS and Eintracht Frankfurt

14 February 2025 – IT and football don’t go together? Think again! Data analysis, artificial intelligence and cloud computing have long been important fields in international football as the Bundesliga. To introduce students with the relevant skills to career prospects in the football industry, the DFL, EintrachtTech (the digital subsidiary of Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG), and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are jointly organizing a hackathon.

During the multi-week competition, participating teams will work on challenges set by EintrachtTech and DFL. The specific tasks, which are aimed at students from various disciplines, will be presented to all registered participants during the virtual kickoff event on February 24.  

Further information and the opportunity to register can be found here. 

The twelve best teams will present their solutions to a jury in the finals on April 11 at the EintrachtLab located on the grounds of Deutsche Bank Park. The winners will enjoy attending a Bundesliga home game of Eintracht Frankfurt the same weekend.

With ambition and creative ideas, participants with and without football expertise can experience first-hand how they can contribute to shaping the digital future.

Marion Mertesacker, Vice President Human Resources DFL GmbH

Marion Mertesacker, Vice President Human Resources at DFL GmbH, says: “The hackathon with AWS and Eintracht Frankfurt gives participants the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the exciting topics and projects of our subsidiaries DFL Digital Sports and Sportec Solutions. This not only provides a valuable insight into the collaboration with interdisciplinary teams and the innovative work being done there, but also into the diverse and interesting career opportunities within the DFL Group. With ambition and creative ideas, participants with and without football expertise can experience first-hand how they can contribute to shaping the digital future.”

Timm Jäger, Managing Director of EintrachtTech GmbH, says: “Since 2019, we at EintrachtTech have been focusing on new digital business models and innovation. Since then, we have been able to build our own software development and develop all of Eintracht’s central systems ourselves, thus elevating the club to a new digital level. The resulting digital platform not only covers app/content, digital ticketing, and eCommerce but has created a digital ecosystem into which external partners such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Deutsche Bank, and others have been integrated via interfaces. As a fast-growing tech startup that will now offer the developed solutions to other sports organizations as Software-as-a-Service, we are continuously looking for new talents.”

DFL has been an innovation pioneer in international professional football for many years. AWS is the world’s most comprehensive and widely used cloud platform and the official technology provider of the DFL. A key focus of the collaboration is the innovative use of generative artificial intelligence. Since 2020, DFL and AWS have been working together in the most extensive cooperation between a football league and a technology company, combining their respective expertise in sports, media, and game data, as well as machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). Numerous projects have already been successfully implemented, such as the development of Bundesliga Match Facts powered by AWS (BMF), a comprehensive offering of advanced real-time analytics based on official match data. 

About EintrachtTech

To consolidate all strategic digital activities and projects of Eintracht Frankfurt under one roof, Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG founded its digital subsidiary EintrachtTech GmbH in 2019. EintrachtTech has since been recognized multiple times as a top innovator among German medium-sized businesses and was awarded in 2022 for its innovative digital business models for the “Best Digital Transformation in World Football.” Its core mission is the digital advancement of Eintracht Frankfurt and the development of new digital business models in the business areas of Platform & Digital Ecosystem, the Arena of IoT, Esports, as well as Tech and Startup Collaborations. 

About Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud, offering over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—are using AWS to lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster.