Somewhere between the FA Cup win and the Community Shield that followed it, Crystal Palace stopped being everyone's favorite underdog and became a club playing in the Europa Conference League, its first taste of European football in 164 years.
This season, there's a new name across the front of the shirt: Temporal. Although I've made my career in tech, I know what a shirt means to a supporter: it represents a community you stand with through the wins and the losses. It's why we don't take our name on it lightly.
Football runs on more software than you'd think#
Most Premier League clubs put sensors on their players now, catching an injury before their muscle even does. It's often the difference between your best player starting in April or missing the rest of the season. Offside calls are decided by cameras tracking every player's exact position in real time.
Football has quietly become one of the most technologically advanced, demanding software environments. All of it comes down to the same requirement: seamlessly finishing tasks without breaking, and this is the exact problem Temporal was made for.
You already trust us, you just didn't realize it#
Our software is probably already part of your day, even if you've never heard our name. Booking a ticket to a movie, ordering dinner for delivery, asking an AI assistant a question. Somewhere in there, a payment that almost didn't clear or an order almost got lost on the way to your door.
Instead, it worked, and you were none the wiser. That's because Temporal makes sure the job finishes no matter what breaks. Snap, DoorDash, Yum! Brands, and OpenAI all build on us for exactly that reason: reliability.
Selhurst is just one more place we want that to be true.
Why we belong together#
What struck me about Palace fans is that your loyalty goes far beyond the trophy case. You stayed true through relegations, through new administration, and through long seasons without the wins you wanted. By the time the FA Cup finally arrived, it just confirmed what had already been true: together, you win.
Temporal works the same way. The developers who use us found us early and trusted us in production before anyone else caught on, and we've built this company around them ever since. We rely on our developers, and they rely on us right back, the same way Palace relies on you, and you rely on Palace.
This is what binds our two brands together, not just the logo on the shirt. Here at Temporal, we just closed a $300 million Series D and we're valued at $5 billion. Now, we're one of the fastest-growing companies in enterprise technology. Similarly, Palace is heading into a new era of its own. The winning streak spills over into work outside the stadium. It's why we're working with the club on things you'll actually notice and use, and it already shows up at Selhurst. It's what's underneath when you tap your card for a pint and a pie, getting your order from the till to the kitchen without you standing there wondering where it went.
We're also funding computer science and AI workshops for young people across South London through the Palace for Life Foundation, hands-on sessions where kids build something they care about with code instead of just hearing about it.
Looking back to look forward#
We made a film with the club to mark this going public, and it's built around the same idea: looking back to look forward. The sash returns to the home shirt fifty years after it first appeared, carrying the Temporal name for the first time.
This kit launch is just the start. We're in this for the long haul: building what comes next with the community we both want to give back to. I hope to see plenty of you at Selhurst this season.
— Samar