By Alice Chambers |
The Premier League, the world’s most-watched football league with over 1.8 billion people across 189 countries, has made a five-year deal with Microsoft to enhance how fans connect with the game.
At the centre of the partnership is the Premier League Companion powered by Microsoft Copilot, which is a new AI tool available on the official Premier League mobile app and web platforms.
Using Microsoft Azure AI Foundry Services, including Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models, the Companion accesses the league’s vast archive of 30 seasons of statistics, 300,000 articles and 9,000 videos. It then uses agentic AI to generate contextual conversations and personalised recommendations, helping fans better understand and enjoy the game.
Fans will soon be able to explore the Companion’s features by asking questions such as ‘what are the best five goals of all time?’, ‘how many times has my club been relegated?’ and ‘what’s the oldest professional football club?’.
“What the clubs are excited about with this partnership is the ability of the Premier League to bring new fans in, encourage them to discover and learn more about the league and then ultimately form a relationship with a club and develop that lifelong affinity,” said Alexandra Willis, director of digital media and audience development for the Premier League. “We would hope that for, say, a Crystal Palace fan, the app will help them discover what’s happening right now, how to watch or listen, and how to engage – always linking back to Crystal Palace’s platforms. For newer fans, we want to introduce them to the league with player-led storytelling and personalised content based on nationality and interests.”
That fan-centric approach is a core part of the league’s broader commercial strategy, which focuses on deepening audience engagement across all platforms.
“Our role is to create value for our clubs by engaging with as many fans as we can and bringing them into the Premier League ecosystem,” said Will Brass, chief commercial officer for the Premier League. “Ultimately, a big part of that is making sure our channels are best equipped to engage with those fans and deliver what they want.”
The Premier League is also migrating its core technology infrastructure to Microsoft Azure. This will allow it to scale large amounts of data quickly and securely. It will also use Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations to enhance internal workflows, collaboration and data-driven decisions.
“Moving the historic Premier League archive onto Azure is part of our ability to both curate content for our own channels and better serve our broadcast licensees around the world,” said Brass. “It ensures that content, which is rich, exciting and historic, is as readily available as can be, both to ourselves and our partners.”
The Premier League Fantasy game will also be updated for the upcoming season, further expanding the digital experiences available to fans.
Microsoft cloud and AI technology will enable the Premier League to deliver real-time insights and personalised fan experiences