The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2024–2026
Man City and Puma let fans design the AI third kit — and wore it
Puma opened its generative AI kit creator to Manchester City fans, who submitted 180,000 designs; the winner was worn on the pitch.
Manchester City · Puma
What it had to solve
Puma launched AI Creator, a generative design tool powered by Deepobjects, in December 2024. Manchester City players first used it for a goalkeeper kit, and the club then wondered what would happen if the whole fanbase — not professionals — designed a first-team kit.
How it works
In December 2024 Puma launched AI Creator, a generative tool powered by the co-creation platform Deepobjects that turns text prompts, sliders and controls into kit designs. Manchester City goalkeepers Ederson, Stefan Ortega and Rico Lewis used it to make a limited goalkeeper kit with a goal-net pattern; the club then opened the same tool to every fan.
The contest made the stakes literal. Fans could enter from anywhere, earn extra entries and design credits by rating others' work or holding a Puma NFT, and vote on what they saw. People from more than 200 countries generated more than 180,000 unique designs that collected over 1.7 million votes, which were narrowed to a shortlist of ten finalists.
The winner was Elliott, a lifelong City fan who said he created the design on his lunch break: a white shirt split by two vertical stripes in gradient sky blue and navy, carrying the club badge, Puma logo and Etihad sponsorship, made in Puma's Ultrawave performance fabric. The club says it is the first professional AI fan-designed kit to be worn on a football pitch.
Reaction was split. The club's comments section included critics calling it 'AI slop' or unoriginal — the club has worn similar white-and-stripe shirts before, including a Nike design in 2013-14. Even so, the kit turned a generative tool demo into a first-team product chosen by the fanbase.
Why it lands
- The prize was real: the winning fan design would be manufactured and worn by the first team, so entering meant designing an actual product rather than answering a survey.
- The crowd did both jobs — creators submitted, and the same crowd voted, so engagement and selection fed one loop instead of ending at a brand jury.
- Credits and entries tied into rating and NFT holding stretched participation beyond one design, keeping the community working on the campaign.
- The design stayed on-brand: AI produced many speculative looks, but the final white-and-stripe shirt was conservative, which made a controversial tool land as a familiar kit.
- It gave the club a first: 'first professional AI fan-designed kit worn on the pitch' is a milestone claim that travels further in press than another jersey launch.
What it did
The 2026-27 third kit became the first professional fan-designed AI kit to be worn on a football pitch. The contest pulled 180,000+ designs and 1.7M+ votes from 200+ countries; press coverage followed, and critics in the club's comments called the result 'AI slop' or unoriginal.
What you can take
Real co-creation means giving away real control: when the crowd's design actually ships on a match shirt, participation becomes the product, and the audience acts as both creator and jury.
Since then
The 2026-27 third kit launched around 26 August 2026, with the winner revealed as lifelong fan Elliott and the shirt available from Puma and club stores. Fast Company covered it as a milestone for AI adoption in professional sports, and ESPN reported it as City and Puma equipping fans with AI to design the kit. The louder criticism — that the final shirt was derivative and the process produced 'AI slop' — framed the campaign as a test of whether crowd-AI design can produce something a club would actually wear, a question the next season's kits inherit.
Sources
- Man City fans used AI to design the team's new kit
- Man City, Puma equip fans with AI to design 2026-27 third kit
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