The digitalized soccer fan: understanding the fan journey

Digitalization has significantly changed the business with soccer fans. A digital fan journey (analogous to the customer journey) has formed around the experience of watching a match – be it live or in front of a screen – and has a whole series of digital touchpoints. This fan journey goes far beyond the specific soccer match and the sale of merchandise, as it addresses the entire fan experience and appeals to the sense of belonging among fans. To put it in a nutshell: The soccer experience is being expanded to include a digital level, which is becoming more and more important. But what does this look like in concrete terms?

Phases of the fan journey

• Pre-season: A fan journey begins not only before the game, but even before the season. This is because fans follow the buying and selling of players with keen interest in the transfer window. The aim in this phase is to build awareness.
• Before the game: Once the season has started, a lot revolves around the games themselves. Before each game, the aim is to generate buzz in order to turn ordinary spectators into real, committed fans.
• During the game: This phase is all about creating an immersive experience at live and non-live sporting events. The challenge is to seamlessly transition the digital experience into the physical experience of coming together as fans.
• After the game: Once the game is over, engagement must be maintained. To do this, interactions with and between fans are encouraged to build long-lasting loyalty and increase customer lifetime value.

Fan engagement through digital technologies

A state-of-the-art direct-to-consumer (D2C) fan platform is essential for fan engagement during all these phases. The possibilities for fan interaction here are wide-ranging: Apart from content, the possibilities of e-sports, digital fantasy sports and over-the-top (OTT) media services can be utilized. Such a D2C platform offers several monetization sources, including ads and in-app purchases, streaming fees and sponsorship deals.

In order to retain fans in the long term, it must be considered that digital offerings must be tailored to today's audience. This means that content must be hyper-personalized and take into account the short attention span of digital natives. In this context, working with influencers can help enormously to achieve engagement and conversion goals.

Learn more in the OMMAX whitepaper "Digitalization in Football Clubs"