Ahead of the 2026-27 NHL season, the NHL has signed a multiyear deal with Adobe that designates the creative services giant an official “creative, marketing and AI partner” of the league. Financial terms were not disclosed. No agencies were used. Adobe will gain marketing and promotional rights including in-arena branding; digital media, hospitality and activation assets; and broadcast exposure opportunities. The deal will also see Adobe supply the NHL and its 32 clubs with its suite of Adobe CX Enterprise solutions, which include AI-powered content operations tool GenStudio and customer data platform Adobe Experience Platform.
NHL SVP/Data & Insights Oliver Gomes said the league has used some Adobe products on an individual basis, but this deal allows them to work “across their whole platform suite” for the first time. GenStudio will help the league create digital content, particularly for social media, while the Experience Platform will help personalize how content is delivered and messaged to fans. Gomes added that the league hopes sharing the Adobe tools with its teams will boost their fan intelligence efforts, and that in the future NHL fans could use the Adobe Express graphics creation tool to create content of their own using NHL templates. As an example of how Adobe will aid the NHL’s personalization efforts, Gomes described a hypothetical where a hockey fan visits the NHL website and reads through content, then registers their email address with the league.
“When they [the fan] come to the site next time, now that team’s content is at the top. We can give them ticket promotions or deals because we know they’re a fan,” Gomes said. “All of that gives closer proximity between the clubs, the league and the fan, because we know more about you … Adobe connects the dots for us and helps make it easy.”
Adobe also has deals that cover tech integration and sponsorship with the NFL, Premier League, MLB and Real Madrid.