The Beautiful Game: The Story of Adobe's Premier League Deal
The football season is over, the transfer window is open and Adobe has just made one of the signings of the summer.
Ahead of the 2025/26 season, Adobe and the Premier League have put pen to paper on a partnership that will see the Photoshop firm become the official Creativity and Digital Fan Experience Partner of the world’s most widely viewed sporting competition.
The multi-year deal, announced at Adobe Summit London, will make Adobe’s Express and Firefly Gen AI technologies part of the Premier League's digital ecosystem, allowing fans to enjoy them alongside the footie.
The software will be embedded into both the Premier League’s website and its Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game, which is draws more than 11 million avid players every year.
In FPL, Adobe’s technology will allow users to create custom badges and kits for their teams — a level of creativity which has never before been afforded to players.
Moreover, users can be sure that Adobe’s Gen AI technology is a completely equitable affair and doesn’t draw from copyrighted material without compensating or conferring with creators. Instead, Firefly is trained exclusively on licensed artworks from Adobe Stock’s vast library.
"Adobe AI technology is empowering passionate fans to shape how they experience and share the unrivalled drama of matchday, through real-time news updates and fan-created content that stands out on social media, thanks to the creative magic of Adobe Express," says Rachel Thornton, CMO, Enterprise at Adobe.
Adding to the fan experience
The Premier League has one of the largest and most engaged audiences of any institution in the world.
This makes this exclusive deal incredibly valuable to Adobe, giving its marketing team a huge edge over competitors.
Part of the reason why the Premier League has welcomed this collaboration with the world’s leading digital design company is the emphasis it has put on the fans of the sport.
As well as giving fans access to high quality creative tools, Adobe plans to use deliver them personalised content that is driven by data analytics — completely changing the nature of the fan experience from this season on.
Adobe Experience Platform is set to aggregate fan preferences across the Premier League's entire digital ecosystem, enabling targeted content delivery to the league's global audience.
"The Premier League is followed by millions of fans around the world — all of whom have very different reasons for doing so," explains Will Brass, Chief Commercial Officer at the Premier League.
"Adobe is a global leader in digital experiences and creativity, and this exciting partnership provides us with the tools to better understand and deliver what our fans need and want digitally."
Real-time notifications powered by Adobe's Customer Data Platform and Journey Optimiser will deliver breaking news alerts tailored to individual fan preferences and geographical locations.
This system can trigger location-specific push notifications whenever fans enter stadiums and even send personalised emails highlighting specific player performances for those fans looking to improve their FPL team.
A global reach
The partnership isn’t Adobe's first foray into the world of sports.
With its NFL deal already cornering the US market, this project with the Premier League will see its reach extend to almost every corner of the globe.
Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing will enable the Premier League's digital marketing teams to accelerate campaign creation using AI models, potentially reducing content production costs and time-to-market.
Customer Journey Analytics, including Adobe's recently released Data Insights Agent, will provide attribution analysis to determine which content drives fan loyalty and conversion.
The deal positions Adobe's creative suite against competitors in the sports entertainment technology space, where personalised fan experiences are becoming increasingly valuable to rights holders seeking to monetise global audiences.
There are plenty of possibilities for the future too.
The company has touted the idea of deploying agentic AI through its Adobe Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator, enabling automated personalised content creation based on unified fan data profiles.
The road ahead is still unclear, but Will believes that even this early phase of Adobe’s footballing career will help to "enrich the fan experience and provide them with new creative ways to express their passion for the league".