Microsoft Becomes Official AI and Cloud Partner of Premier League in Landmark Deal
18 hours ago
The Premier League and Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced a five-year strategic partnership to transform how 1.8 billion fans in 189 countries engage with the world’s most-watched football league. As part of the collaboration, Microsoft will become the official cloud and AI partner for the Premier League’s digital platforms, modernizing the League’s digital infrastructure, broadcast match analysis and organizational operations.
At the heart of the partnership are the Premier League’s new fan-facing digital platforms, which leverage Microsoft’s cloud and AI technologies to usher in a new era of intelligent and intuitive fan experiences.
From today, fans around the world can learn more about the Premier League clubs, players and matches of their choice through a new digital Premier League Companion powered by Copilot. This highly personalized experience leverages Azure OpenAI to pull information from over 30 seasons of stats, 300,000 articles and 9,000 videos, unlocking a whole new world of facts and figures for fans about the clubs and players that matter to them most.
The Premier League Companion is available on the new official Premier League mobile app and web platforms and will be enhanced throughout the upcoming Premier League season. Additional functionality is set to include open-text questions and answers in fans’ native languages through text and audio translation. Later in the season, Microsoft AI will also be included within the app and website’s enhanced Fantasy Premier League experience, giving every fan their own personal assistant manager to help them steer their fantasy squad to victory.
The Premier League Companion gives fans deeper, more personalized and interactive access to the players, teams and the game they love.
The partnership marks one of the most significant technology transformations in the League’s history, anchored around four key areas: fan engagement, match insights and analysis, cloud transformation, and organizational productivity. Together, Microsoft and the Premier League aim to build one of global sport’s most advanced and secure media, data and AI platforms.
Integrating Microsoft Azure AI Foundry services, including Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models, will further enhance the live match experience with real-time data overlays and post-match analysis. From archive innovation to in-broadcast insights, fans will gain deeper, more interactive access to the game they love.
Richard Masters, chief executive of the Premier League, said: “We are delighted to welcome Microsoft as a partner of the Premier League. This partnership will help us engage with fans in new ways — from personalized content to real-time match insights. We look forward to working together over the next five yearsto deliver more innovative experiences to all Premier League supporters around the world.”
“We are pleased to partner with the Premier League to bring innovative and interactive experiences to football fans around the world,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft. “By leveraging our secure cloud and AI technologies — including Azure AI Foundry Services with Azure OpenAI, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Dynamics 365 — we will transform how football is experienced, delivered and managed on and off the field.”