Latest news with #RichardMasters
International Business Times
11 hours ago
- Sport
- International Business Times
Microsoft Partners with Premier League, to Bring AI Powered Digital Experience to 1.8 Billion Football Fans Worldwide
Microsoft is bringing exciting news for football fans as the tech giant and the Premier League are teaming up to bring major change to soccer, using artificial intelligence to create a more compelling experience for fans in the United Kingdom and beyond. This fresh five-year collaboration is designed to cater to more than 1.8 billion fans across 189 nations with tailored, intelligent, and interactive football coverage. Central to the collaboration is Microsoft's formidable cloud and AI stack—Azure. It backs a new and improved Premier League Companion app. It will provide fans with live stats, highlight videos in multiple languages, and smart insights during matches. Microsoft's AI Copilot also assists fans to squad like a pro for their Fantasy League teams with real-time stats and predictions. From the app, fans can now ask open-ended questions in their local language to get some interesting facts about the game and enhance their knowledge. The A.I. system draws from 30 seasons' worth of data, 300,000 articles, and 9,000 videos to answer fan questions and make smart recommendations. It's a personal assistant and life coach for football. But this collaboration is for more than just the fans. The Premier League is also improving its behind-the-scenes tech, thanks to Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and Dynamics 365. It will help the league do better work internally and increase security and keep everything moving quickly and smoothly. The aim, said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, is "to transport players to the center of action to connect them more closely than ever to the game." Richard Masters, CEO of the Premier League, also said the partnership will offer fans around the world exciting new opportunities. Central to the project is taking historic match footages, articles, and stats and transforming them into living digital content. Everything will be made smart and available in real time. Fans will get match highlights, stats, and updates in their preferred language irrespective of their location. Even in live matches, fans will see AI-generated overlays and smarter post-match analysis. The goal is to make football-watching experiences more enjoyable, individualized, and social for everyone.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
Premier League Makes An AI Play To Enhance The Fan Experience
AI makes its way onto the pitch This summer, the Premier League didn't sign who you might expect. Instead of a star striker or record-breaking winger, it brought Microsoft onto the roster. On July 1, England's top football league announced a five-year partnership with the tech giant to build something more powerful than a highlight reel: a live AI tool that gives each fan personalized updates and interactions. The Premier League Companion is a virtual assistant embedded in the league's app. Fans can ask it anything such as 'How many goals did Cole Palmer score after the 60th minute?' or 'Should I start him in fantasy this week?' It'll have an answer, thanks to decades of match data, video, and analysis packed into a chat-style interface. 'This partnership will help us engage with fans in new ways — from personalized content to real-time match insight' said Richard Masters, the Premier League's chief executive. 'We look forward to working together [with Microsoft]An AI-Powered Sideline Analyst The Companion will launch before the 2025–26 season. It runs on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI tools and ties into the league's official databases, offering fans a searchable, multilingual guide to everything from player stats to team tactics. Fantasy football fans get custom tips. Casual supporters can tap into historical moments. Everyone gains quick, easy access to what was once buried in stats pages and pundit banter. It's not just about stats, though. The move is part of an increasing trend as sports and entertainment are turning to AI to keep viewers on their apps and away from TikTok, Reddit, and third-party score trackers. The Tech Arms Race in Sports Around the world, leagues are experimenting with similar tools. Wimbledon and IBM launched Match Chat, which answers fan questions during matches and shows shifting win probabilities in real time. LaLiga created Beyond Stats, using millions of data points per match to build tailored graphics and predictive visuals. Major League Soccer introduced Sidekick, an in-app AI that learns each user's habits and serves up game clips and even ticket offers. Major League Baseball is pushing My Daily Story, an AI-edited video recap built around what each fan actually wants to watch. These tools aren't just features. They're strategies to keep fans inside official apps. And they can work. A Business Play, Not a Toy Microsoft's role goes beyond powering a chatbot. Its cloud services handles fan data, automates workflows, and helps the league personalize content at scale. If you ask Copilot about a player's form, don't be surprised if you're offered tickets or a collectible soon after. Each query is a clue, and a potential sale. The shift is from watching to interacting. Fans spend more time in the app. Teams get better data. Sponsors reach more engaged audiences. Everyone wins, if the tools work. Fair Play Meets Fast Data There's a flip side. What happens if the AI gets a stat wrong? Or if a mistranslation causes a storm on social media? Microsoft says it's addressing those risks. The Companion pulls answers from verified Premier League sources using a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system. The volume of fan queries on opening weekend will test those systems hard. Then there's the competitive side. If fans can ask these questions, can teams use the same tools for scouting? For game prep? Some think AI will level the playing field. Others worry it will widen the gap between clubs with tech-savvy staff and those without. Privately, some coaches are already asking whether they'll get their own version with insights the fans don't see. For broadcasters, this is a wake-up call. With a tap, fans will get explainers on pressing tactics or past player performances. That pushes networks to up their second-screen game, or risk falling behind. The International Olympic Committee is planning to use AI to chop up 11,000 hours of footage into highlight clips for the 2026 Winter Games. That's the kind of playbook Sky or NBC might need to copy. What's Next: One Identity, One Experience This is just the beginning. League officials hint that future updates could include live real-time data overlays in stadiums, audio commentary in multiple languages, or AI-generated replays of classic matches. The long-term vision? A fan profile that works across every touchpoint whether watching at home, cheering in the stadium, or picking a fantasy team. Wherever fans are, the league wants to be ready with the right info, the right offer, and the right story. And if it works, others will follow. Wimbledon's already feeding tennis lingo into its own AI. MLB is perfecting bite-sized video for younger generations. The real race now is over trust. Whoever can earn that trust with AI, and who turns that trust into loyalty.
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Premier League and Microsoft announce partnership using AI to improve fan experience
LONDON (AP) — The Premier League and Microsoft have announced a partnership to provide AI support to fans across the league's digital platforms. Fans will be able to access information from more than 30 seasons of stats, 300,000 articles and 9,000 videos to provide enhanced analysis and engagement when watching the world's most popular soccer league. Features will include open-text questions and answers in a fan's native language through text and audio translation. 'This partnership will help us engage with fans in new ways — from personalized content to real-time match insights,' said Premier League chief executive Richard Masters. ___ AP soccer:
CNBC
3 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
English Premier League integrates Microsoft AI into fan app in new 5-year deal
The English Premier League is bringing artificial intelligence to the soccer pitch through a new partnership with Microsoft. The five-year agreement will integrate Microsoft's Copilot AI into the English Premier League app, offering fans access to more than 300,000 articles, 9,000 videos and statistics from the league dating back to its founding in 1992. Future iterations of the technology will translate text and audio into a user's native language and will enhance the digital Fantasy Premier League offerings. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. "This partnership will help us engage with fans in new ways — from personalized content to real-time match insights," Richard Masters, English Premier League CEO, said in a news release. The English Premier League is widely seen as the most prestigious soccer organization in the world and is the most-watched, airing matches in 189 countries and reaching 900 million homes globally, according to the league. "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," Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft, said in a statement. Under the partnership, Microsoft is also becoming the league's cloud computing partner after a previous contract with Oracle ended. The English Premier League season begins Aug. 15. Before that, fans can watch the Premier League Summer Series, a tournament of "friendly," or exhibition, matches, from July 26 to Aug. 3 in the U.S. The first matches will be held at MetLife Stadium near New York City with Everton facing AFC Bournemouth and Manchester United facing West Ham United.
ITV News
12-06-2025
- Sport
- ITV News
New report calls for eight-week break and mid-season rest for footballers
All professional footballers must be given at least eight weeks to rest and retrain between seasons and a minimum one-week mid-season break, according to a new report. The call for minimum protections to be introduced worldwide comes as some of the world's top stars including Manchester City prepare to take part in the newly-expanded FIFA Club World Cup in the United States, which begins on Saturday 14 June. The tournament does not end until 13 July, meaning Manchester City and Chelsea players could have a gap of just five weeks before the new Premier League season kicks off on 16 August. That is two weeks less than the minimum off-season rest and retraining period a group of 70 medical and performance experts have recommended in a new study. England head coach Thomas Tuchel said earlier this week that the demands placed on City and Chelsea by the Club World Cup will hand a 'huge advantage' to Liverpool and Arsenal in next season's Premier League title race. The European division of world players' union FIFPRO and Europe's leagues have taken legal action against FIFA over what they see as a lack of consultation by the game's global governing body over the fixture calendar. The scheduling of the Club World Cup within that calendar has been described as a 'tipping point' in the debate by Premier League chief executive Richard Masters. The expert group has put forward 12 'position statements' on player welfare as part of the Delphi Study, which they feel should be adopted worldwide as minimum welfare standards. These included a mandatory four-week off-season break, and within that a two-week blackout period where clubs and national teams should have no contact at all with players. There should then be a minimum four-week retraining period after the off-season break before resuming competitive football. Mid-season breaks should last a minimum of one week, experts League players will not benefit from any mid-season break next season, as was the case in 2024-25. A pause was introduced in the 2019-20 season but was dropped before the start of the season just ended, due to the expansion of international competitions like UEFA's Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. The 12 position statements were agreed with the consensus of at least 75 per cent of the experts involved. Among the other statements were calls for mandatory consideration of the travel burden on players and the impact of long-haul flights, as well as specific workload safeguards for under-18 players. Dr Vincent Gouttebarge, the medical director of FIFPRO, said: 'This study presents safety standards based on the considered and independent opinions of medical and performance experts working in professional football who understand the mental and physical strain placed on players. 'If we can all agree that health comes first, then we should take steps to implement these safeguards.'
