Reinventing Fan Experience: Fan4.0

Being a sports fan, especially if we are talking about popular sports such as soccer, football or basketball, it is a big mark in our lives. Have heard about people changing jobs, political parties, schools, universities, spouses but never heard anyone changing clubs. When you born a fan of one club you die as a fan for this club. In most cases this is heritage moving from one generation to the other, this why there is so much passion involved.

As a sports fan, you are eager to put on your favorite’s team’s jersey, go to the stadium and cheer for your favorite stars – the players. ?I can recall from my teenage years (and not only ??) how much I was always looking forward to reach Sundays or any other match day to go to stadium for supporting my club.

Match days were, excitement days however no matter the rewarding fun I would get at the end of the day, they were also collateral challenges, below are only some I can recall;

1.Transportation to the stadium: If I was lucky and an adult would go to the stadium would join him as well for avoiding delays in public transportation, alternatively would need to take a bus or metro for reaching there. In both scenarios would be a long task, either because switching public transportation might be lengthy or even if going with a car might take us an hour to find a parking spot, considering more than 30,000 people would be keen to join the stadium as I do. In both scenarios fan should consider 2 hours at least commute time.

2. Find your Friends: Reaching in stadium’s of course you need your friends, you need these people you will enjoy and comment about the game with them. But new challenges are coming again first of all remember when we are talking about big games you should expect within the same area you will be surrounded by more than 30,000 people hence you can imagine how tough was to be connected with your friends. Can recall from these days even mobile phones were not working because cells where overwhelmed hence it was impossible to make or receive call.

3. Waiting time in Canteen: There is no way to enjoy your favorite team with out the proper snack, hence I would need wait in an ideal scenario at least 30 minutes to get my favorite drink and snack before entering stadium. If I would dare to do this in the half time most probably, I would miss a major part in second half.

4. Lengthy Ticket Validation and Identification: After getting the snack then we headed to the fan’s gate however this was not easy at all as this would be another long process. A clerk would check the tickets for the authenticity and confirm fan’s identification for security purposes

5. Searching assigned seat: After passing the long process of authentication and identification we could finally go to our assigned seats but again it could take some time to identify our seats especially when my favorite team was playing away, and I was not familiar with the stadium.

6. Lack of Video Replay: Finally, we reached our seats surrounded by exciting fans who show all their passion during the game. There was a number of times my team scored a goal and I was not able to see it real-time because the supporter in front of me was more passionate than me, standing up to cheer for the players to score. Great thing for my team was the goal, and what an embarrassing situation for me paying a ticket to see the game and finally I missed the most important part, the goal. I was so much impatient to go back home and watch the goal from the news on TV, as there was no chance to watch a replay from the displays.

Above are only some of the challenges I was experiencing as a fan, however all these points are properly addressed from shifting myself from fan to fan 4.0.

What is a Fan 4.0?

As technology is dictating the timing of new vision for every industry the same goes with entertainment and hence with sports fans. Sport Clubs now are focusing for enhancing their fans experience which are not only their lifetime customers, but they are also their future sellers for bringing more customers onboard, their friends, their families, their offsprings. Sport clubs are running their own Digital Transformation Journey targeting optimal customer experience, with increased revenue streams at the lowest operational cost.

As data is growing everywhere sports industry could not left behind hence big clubs are called to collect, integrate, and create useful insights targeting in happy customers, happy fans these are fans 4.0.

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Matchday for a Fan 4.0

Let’s see how challenges mentioned in the beginning of this document are addressed after a club has gone through a successful digital transformation journey.

Fast-Transportation: Using the mobile phone a fan will get suggested routes for reaching the venue. No need to guess where the traffic jam is or if there is a blocked road because of works. Technology will give this information on the hand-held device fast, accurate and real time. Nobody wants to arrive late in a match day, and technology is here to support us.

Smart Parking: ?Using popular IoT sensors such as LoRa, a fan can save time from time to guess where potential parking slot is. Using a mobile application Fan 4.0 would easily get notified whether a parking space is empty or not.

Always Connected: Networking infrastructure in a MUST for a Digital Stadium, there is no need to rely on the cell network of the mobile vendor for getting connected with our friends. An agile and fast network will do the job for us, hence sports clubs need to ensure they have the right technology in place for hosting their fans. I am talking about Wireless networks

Either by using an application developed by the club for the fans or by using other applications rely on an agile and fast internet, they would be able to connect their friends very easy and fast.

Wayfinding: Either if a fan wants to locate his/her seat or his/her friend the wireless network is there to assist. No time will be wasted for finding out where is the requested location, using the wayfinding app fans will be able to find their spot or their friends, fast and easy.

Enjoy snack and shopping from the comfort of the seat: Fan 4.0 won’t need to miss a minute from the game for going to get a snack in the half-time from the canteen. Modern clubs will be able to provide you on-line shopping and delivery experience from the comfort of fan’s seat. Either if we are talking about drink, snack, jersey, or any other product it will be a seamless process and with a few clicks requested snack or product will delivered on the assigned seat.

Fast Authentication and identification: Tickets will be digital, meaning would be stored in our phones. Authentication and identification of named tickets will be seamless. Instead of having an excessive number of human resources (security wardens or clarks) for the validation of thousand tickets with minutes. Technology will do this task for the clubs by simply scanning their digital tickets to the readers.

Personalized contents: Even if someone has missed to see a goal or if perhaps, he/she needs to review a goal, a foul-kick, or if it was a real penalty or not. It would be very easy this to be done by simply using their mobile phones.

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These are only some of the advantages of Fan 4.0 Vs Traditional Fan. On the top we should consider some advantages for the club as well which are not considered only into Fan experience but also on revenue streaming:

Easy shopping: Enabling your fans to shop easily and fast from the comfort of their own seats means no hesitation. Customers will enjoy the service and will be happy to order and shop more with zero effort

Marketing Campaigns & Advertisements: Onboarding Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, fans will be able to receive personalize advertisements based on their own needs. Same with campaigns loyal fans will get special offers on their own phone

Seamless and Cost-Efficient Operations: Digitization in processes and routines tasks such as authentication, identification means simplified and cost efficient process.

?Let’s enjoy the era of Fan 4.0 with all the benefits for both fans and the club

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