The work of digital engagement is never finished. 

There are lots of clubs in sport who have established, well-used mobile apps for connecting with their fans. These teams have long understood the value of providing their communities with a convenient channel for communication and information. 

However, as vital as they are to the supporters who use them, these apps may not be realising the full potential of clubs’ digital activities. And tapping into those possibilities does not necessarily require a major online overhaul.

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The limits of FTNS

For plenty of clubs, mobile apps have not been procured independently. 

Most concentrate only on what is called ‘club FTNS’: Fixtures, Tables, News and Scores. They do not offer features above that – hampering their importance to fans and their potency for the teams running them.

They have often been provided by a league or governing body as part of a wider digital strategy focussed on delivering value to the league rather than to individual teams. As welcome as that intervention will have been at the time, it leaves clubs with less control over the function of those apps – and valuable elements like first-party data – than would best serve their commercial needs. 

Even where clubs have taken a lead in sourcing their own app in the first place, these have sometimes aged out of relevance.

FTNS-focused apps do not provide enough to draw fans away from other easily available channels – like social media and club or third party websites – and do not offer clubs the chance to harness engagement or capture non-transactional data. 
There is more that these apps can be: central hubs that combine messaging, aggregated content and social feeds, ecommerce, ticketing and matchday activations.

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Reimagining the app experience

Tiparra created its digital engagement platform to help clubs offer a fuller mobile experience. 

Our partners can benefit from this on a flexible software-as-a-service basis, but clubs do not need to completely rebuild or migrate their apps. Tiparra’s engagement tools can be easily integrated to existing offerings to enhance their utility for fans and teams alike.   

From here, you can manage enhanced digital activations, developing exciting new interactions for supporters and enabling more personalised relationships. Then if you are ready to upgrade to take full advantage of a Tiparra-built mobile app in the future, that pathway will be waiting.

Even the biggest sports organisations are constantly looking for ways to get more out of their digital relationships with fans. And just as it does on the field, every improvement adds up.