There are many advantages to owning a dedicated mobile app in sports business. While the principal benefits are for an organization to engage directly with its digital fanbase and collect first-party fan data, sports properties are leveraging mobile beyond the customer experience (CX); they are also wielding mobile apps to serve their athletes, as well as to connect their commercial partners and drive unique sponsorship opportunities via dedicated business apps.
A diverse tool for connecting stakeholders, mobile apps are also helping sports properties to unlock their own digital transformation journeys. By way of example, mobile apps act as pillars for expanding an entity’s digital product portfolio, including the development of new fan experiences such as video streaming and fantasy/gaming, as well as their ability to collect and manage user data by centralizing the organization’s portfolio within a mobile-supported, omnichannel fan experience.
According to research carried out for our Olympic Digital Transformation Report 2023, although the majority of Olympic International Federations (IF) represented at Paris 2024 own an active mobile app (65.6 percent), based on findings at the time of publication, as few as 37.5 percent collect first-party fan data via mobile. This highlights an opportunity for Olympic IFs to diversify their digital offerings and to serve the management of other multi-stakeholder projects by integrating a mobile product within a carefully thought-out digital growth strategy.
Lara Ammar, N3XT Sports’ VP of Project Excellence, highlights the value of carrying out detailed analysis of a sports organization’s digital framework and the role mobile apps can play in expanding its digital offering and rolling out new platforms. She says that, whenever tasked with building something new for a client, her team’s approach is “always to help the client to better understand how digital adoption fits to its existing operations and ways digitalization enhances multi-stakeholder projects”.
“For the federations among our growing client base, it’s vital that the solutions they implement enhance the wider operation,” Lara continues. “In doing so, the integration of digital touchpoints, such as mobile apps, not only act as vehicles for collecting fan and stakeholder data, but to consolidate multiple data points and a foundation for digital expansion in the years to come.”
Therefore, by assessing how a sports entity uses fan data, for example, and areas where it can be improved, the organization will be able to strengthen its internal workflows and the digital and communications skills of its workforce through the creation of digital platforms that consolidate its internal data management. With the appropriate guidance, the implementation of a mobile app is a powerful step for a sports property to streamline the fan journey and open the door to scale its digital offering without creating data silos nor hindering the employee experience (EX).
REGIONAL ANALYSIS | ELITE UK SPORTS MARKET PRIMED FOR MOBILE EXPANSION
The global sports mobile app market is expected to grow rapidly in the next seven years, with revenue forecasts projecting the sector to surpass US$8 billion in value by 2030, up from US$3.89 billion in 2023, according to Grand View Research. While the North American market accounts for roughly 36 percent of the global revenue share, there is also growing consumer demand for “highly interactive interface-based apps” in the UK – particularly via Apple’s iOS store.
The UK is one of the world’s most popular sports markets, with several US major leagues having already pinpointed the market for expansion to Europe, while English football’s top-flight Premier League competition boasts a significant global following. Overall, 90 percent of Premier League clubs competing in the 2023/24 season own a dedicated mobile app, while N3XT Sports’ proprietary research shows that 85 percent collect first-party fan data via mobile. Meanwhile – for those that do collect user data via a mobile product – 70 percent offer users access to their entire digital portfolio using a single sign-on (SSO).
By comparison, 48.3 percent of 151 UK-based elite sports clubs and competition organizing bodies assessed own a mobile app, whereas 43.7 percent collect fan data via mobile (also see a breakdown of mobile ownership among elite UK clubs in the table below). In summary, the UK sports market widely under-utilizes the use of mobile experiences. Among its benchmarks, both Manchester United and Manchester City football clubs provide an all-round fan experience via their dedicated mobile apps, and are among three top-flight UK football teams – with the addition of Chelsea – which incorporate fantasy predictor games within their mobile product.
Considering the growth potential of men’s and women’s elite sport in the UK market, mobile app ownership will prove to be an important step for many organizations seeking to grow their digital fanbase. Meanwhile, increasing levels of mobile adoption among domestic users demonstrates an opportunity for UK sports clubs to leverage mobile to augment their broader digital offerings and optimize their ability to ingest and govern first-party fan data. N3XT Sports subscribers can learn more about this trend in our upcoming Digital Transformation Regional Market Report 2024. Sign up to our weekly newsletter to receive all the latest industry insights.
WHAT’S N3XT?
Owning a mobile app presents sports organizations with a tangible way to consolidate their digital products into a single location and to build their very own omnichannel experience for the digital fan. While this is the north star for many UK football clubs, our research shows that the rate of mobile app integration is very low among the majority of elite UK sports clubs and there is an opportunity for UK sports clubs to optimize their data maturity through mobile ownership.
Understanding how mobile experiences are utilized within the digital strategies of sports organizations is a key learning for clubs, leagues, and federations to decide next steps on their digital transformation journey and the role mobile apps can play in consolidating the CX. With the support of our expert digital transformation team, sports properties can assess, in detail, their digital maturity and areas where their technological infrastructure can be optimized. Mobile apps are playing a critical role within the sports industry’s digital and data transformation.
Our team at N3XT Sports works tirelessly to develop and implement data and digital transformation strategies across a multitude of sports properties at federation level, competition level, and club level. To find out more about how N3XT Sports can serve your organization, fill out the form below, and we’ll be in touch. Our goal is to drive the digitalization of the sports industry and our clients.