In the most robust of team apps, the conversation goes two ways, giving both fans and teams something a little extra special they couldn’t otherwise attain. For the fans, a quality app pulls back the curtain on players with behind-the-scenes video and photos and an opportunity to purchase everything from apparel to concessions. For the teams, they love fans having a new entry into revenue streams—such as merchandise sales and in-stadium concession purchases—but they also appreciate having real-time data on their fans, everything from purchasing habits to parking preferences.
The new wave of venue-driven, team-oriented apps gives everyone a little something. Now it’s a matter of finding the sweet spot to what works best.
In Orlando, the new Orlando City Stadium for the three-year-old Major League Soccer club offered the team a reason to launch the new Orlando City Soccer Club app, created by FanHero. South of Orlando, the Miami Heat have selected BeyondCurious and Built.io to launch a new fan experience via an update to the Miami Heat mobile app, and VenueNext has turned the National Football League’s two newest venues for the San Francisco 49ers and Minnesota Vikings—not to mention the NFL’s largest venue, AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys—into gameday app destinations.
Christopher Cooper, co-founder of FanHero, said apps provide a two-way conversation between the fans and the teams filled with ecommerce capabilities to help teams increase revenue channels while building fan engagement.
At its base, mobile apps serve as a vehicle for mobile ticketing. But they extend beyond that with opportunities for teams to expand marketing, sponsorship and revenue reach. “Teams are always looking for added revenue vehicles. Whether the ability to sell merchandise via phone or tap into additional ad revenue from the ever-growing mobile ecosystem, teams are rapidly moving toward a 360-degree approach to their revenue model,” said Cooper. “Teams now see that mobile can not only be considered an additional revenue stream for them, but it could easily become their main revenue stream.”
As teams sign up fans into the mobile apps, they can then tie in loyalty programs and subscription-based memberships that unlock opportunities—either via a fee or a threshold of team engagement. Of course, teams can keep everything open to fans, such as the behind-the-scenes video of players walking out of the tunnel, pre-game routines or video replay of live action.
And while fans gravitate toward the all-access opportunities and rely on the mobile ticketing advantages, teams continue working to make the app a one-stop shot for all fans attending games. From digital ticket entry, in-seat ordering, stadium wayfinding, “the app has evolved the teams’ reach,” Cooper said. “They can now access users beyond the stadium walls by providing them gameday coverage, live streaming experiences, behind-the-scenes access only available in the app.” And it all comes with additional sponsorship opportunities.
Nikki Barua, CEO of BeyondCurious, said by rebuilding the Heat’s app, they can help fans “more effectively engage with the brand from home and at AmericanAirlines Arena through one seamless, easy-to-use mobile interaction.”
Already with an app that offers exclusive content and electronic ticketing, the new design anticipates personalized, paperless, cashless arena experiences that include exclusive in-arena content, post-game uses and fresh loyalty programs.
In Orlando, the live streaming of games, including angles unavailable elsewhere, team info and club-created content relating to the players, tries to draw fans in for more than mobile ticketing. By integrating with a user’s social networks, Orlando hopes fans start sharing app content via Facebook and Twitter.
FanHero has partnered with Ticketmaster in its platform, which currently offers paperless ticket entry into Orlando City Stadium. In addition, the app allows upgrades and ticket transfers and, in the coming months, will roll out the option to purchase tickets.
VenueNext, which can tell when a fan has entered inside a venue’s geofence, uses location info to unlock additional content and wayfinding. Then, adding in real-time data, offers a changing experience inside the stadium. In-app concession deals, for example, can tie directly to a section’s inventory.
This past season, as a way to reward season ticket holders and encourage mobile ticketing at the 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., the app gave users a QR code and badge worth 10 percent off services in the stadium, redeemable at a concession counter or ordering within the app.
In the future, VenueNext expects an even more robust fan-engagement platform for its app with the ability to coordinate light shows using just the app. Imagine dousing the lights inside Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium and having thousands of fans lift the mobile device up—opened to the app—and letting the choreographed light show play out as everyone’s phones work together.
“Let’s make this purple, white, random, flash on the camera for a quarter of a second, and we can have this play during the light show,” said John Paul, CEO and founder of VenueNext.
But beyond the fun futuristic experiences, from Santa Clara to Orlando’s Amway Center, Paul said teams not only want to give fans something extra, but they also want to mine data to help boost revenues.
Sure, mobile ticketing saves cash by eliminating printing costs upward of $500,000 per year, but a paper ticket serves to create anonymous fans, something far more detrimental to the long-term revenue opportunities of a sports franchise. “Teams want to know who is in the stadium and how many games they went to,” Paul said. “If we get you to use the gameday app, we can know you came to five games and we should sell you a ticket (package).”
The mobile ticketing also alerts teams to who is actually using a season ticket. A fan may have purchased a package, but if they sold or gave away those paper tickets, teams have no way of tracking who’s in the building. Using mobile ticketing, teams can track that the season ticket holder may have only come to a few games and know that next season they maybe should sell a smaller package to that person at the risk of losing them altogether. But they can also track who used the tickets instead of the season-ticket holder, expanding the team’s database of fans and creating opportunities to sell new fans varying ticket packages based on tracked habits.
“It is fun to feel like you have control over the experience of the game,” Paul said. “They get the app and then what else does this have?” They find they can order food to their seat—and maybe order more since they don’t miss the action. They find they can easily explore the stadium via wayfinding and they discover video with the option to modify four different camera angles to show a replay from every play of the game.
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TEAM APPS CREATING DIVERSE PLATFORMS
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