By Alice Chambers |
The Premier League has partnered with Microsoft to overhaul its digital platforms, delivering a more unified and personalised experience for fans around the world.
Speaking at IBC 2025, Alex Willis, director of digital media and audience development at the Premier League, and Simon Crownshaw, worldwide director of media and entertainment at Microsoft, explained how the collaboration is reshaping how supporters access content.
“The partnership has changed the way that fans around the world can engage with the Premier League,” said Willis. “Previously, our app left out people who were interested in the league but not following a specific club. It was fragmented, which made it difficult for those wanting to track multiple clubs, players or events. What was missing was a fully connected ecosystem to enable greater discoverability.”
For Microsoft, the opportunity was to bring together the Premier League’s global community of fans within a single digital environment.
“The Premier League resonates around the world, but fans were having to go to five or six places to find scores or highlights,” said Crownshaw. “The goal should be for people to stay on your platform as long as possible. For me, the biggest thing about sports is community, and we felt that Microsoft could enhance that even more for the Premier League. It wasn’t easy – we spent almost a year trying to figure out how to put it all together. But once we had the blueprint, building was fast – it’s a testament to the way we work.”
Launched on 1 July 2025, the rebuilt Premier League app and website now leverage Microsoft’s full technology stack, with AI at the core. Fans can curate experiences that reflect their personal interests, regardless of location or club allegiance.
“If you’re a Liverpool fan who also follows Manchester City or West Ham, and you live in the US, we can now deliver an experience that recognises you as an individual – not just as a Liverpool fan,” said Willis.
The roadmap for the platform is ambitious. Upcoming features include AI-powered narration of live play, automatic generation of podcasts summarising content users have missed, translation services and interactive video search capabilities. For example, fans will be able to request: “Show me Chelsea’s last five goals.” Frequent updates will ensure the experience evolves in line with fan expectations.
“Our games are enjoyed around the world, but the Premier League is only available in the English language,” said Willis. “We’re starting our translation services in Spanish soon and plan to expand beyond that.”
Crownshaw added that the aim is to continuously reinvent the fan experience: “Updates and releases will be frequent because we know that fan experience needs to be re-invented all the time.”
Looking ahead, the Premier League is exploring new engagement avenues, including e-commerce.
To conclude the session at IBC, Willis highlighted the organisation’s broader mission: “We aim to blend the unprogrammable emotion that comes with football – the emotional reaction – with data and technology to allow the stories of sport to shine. We operate in an attention economy, and our goal is to deliver what fans want as efficiently as possible.”
For broadcasters and media organisations, the Premier League’s partnership with Microsoft offers a case study in how cloud and AI technologies can transform audience engagement, delivering personalised, scalable and multilingual experiences while keeping users within a single digital ecosystem.