Source: Microsoft
Headline: Premier League and Microsoft join forces to create fan-friendly digital platforms
“For one example, moving the historic Premier League archive onto Azure, that’s all part of our ability to both curate content for our own channels but also to better serve our broadcast licensees around the world,” Brass says. “It ensures that content, which is rich and exciting and historic, is as readily available as can be, both to ourselves and our partners. It’s of enormous strategic value. And so it’s reflective, I think, of the importance of this relationship with Microsoft that they are such a critical part of the infrastructure that is not only for the Premier League but for our ecosystem of partners and licensees.”
And while the new Premier League platforms have just launched, there are already future goals in sight, including open-ended natural language queries, increased translation/subtitling across several languages and audio summaries of match weekends.
“It’s very important to us and the broader partnership that we don’t just do one thing and that’s it,” Willis said. “We want the products to evolve as the technology evolves and also as we understand more of the benefits that Copilot and the other tools can bring to us.”
Everton supporters can take solace in the fact that Doucoure’s goal last year was the fourth-fastest in Premier League history, with Southampton’s Shane Long setting the bar at 7.69 seconds in 2019. That’s just one example of the plethora of information that’s just a simple prompt away for football fans and will transform the way matchday is consumed when the season kicks off in August.
“The magical thing about sport is that it’s live and you have to be in the moment to experience it in the best possible way,” Willis said. “And we have become attuned to wanting to complement the live experience with additional information – the concept of the second screen came about for that reason. So, making sure we’re able to provide that information so that it is contextual and it is relevant is really important.
“The Premier League is a football competition proudly staged in England but globally loved and admired. So, we want to make sure that we’re providing something for everyone.”