Fan engagement isn’t a buzzword anymore. Fans, sports teams, and sponsors seek it alike—fans want to connect with their favorite teams on a deeper level, sports teams want to build new revenue streams, and sponsors want to get the most out of their spending.
But here’s the hard truth - even if these 3 groups want the same thing, they are hardly ever on the same platform. For instance, sports fans hang out on social media while marketers fight tooth and nail to drive more fans to official sports websites. This can create confusion in purpose, but thankfully there is a simple solution: a fan engagement platform.
A fan engagement platform unites fans, sports teams and sponsors, delivering exclusive content, building fan loyalty, and boosting merchandise sales and sponsorship ROI. In this article, we give you the list of 7 best fan engagement platforms available in 2024, tips to pick the right one, and the benefits you get as a sports brand by investing in a fan engagement tool.
But before we begin, let’s get to the basics.
What is a fan engagement platform?
A fan engagement platform is a software primed for boosting fan engagement. It allows sports organizations to share their exclusive content and gives fans an opportunity to connect with their favorite teams or players and engage with their content. Sports teams and organizations can use a fan engagement solution to share their behind-the-scenes content, host live virtual events, sell merchandise, and boost sponsorships.
Fan engagement platforms give fans a richer, interactive, and immersive experience that goes beyond what social media channels can provide. For example, fans using these platforms can participate in virtual meet-and-greets, take virtual tours of stadiums and access other exclusive content. These experiences are available only on fan engagement platforms and help build fan loyalty and bring in more revenue.
Best Fan Engagement Platforms in 2024
Here’s a list of the 7 best fan engagement platforms available in 2024 to skyrocket your fan engagement and boost your ROI:
1. Flockler
Although not a traditional fan engagement platform, Flockler offers an array of features sports marketers can use to maximize fan engagement. By embedding Flockler in your official apps and websites, you can make them visually appealing, encouraging fans to spend more time on them.
Star Feature: With Flockler you can link your fan merch store directly to your homepage using Instagram’s shoppable feed. Since shoppable feeds let fans purchase merchandise right from your homepage, it is a great way to monetize fans visiting your website.
Pros:
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Can be used to project social media feeds on screens and jumbotrons across stadiums to connect with in-stadium attendees and virtual fans.
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Lets you embed any social media feed on your official sports website to give a peek into how fellow fans interact with your team.. Here’s an example of how the Australian Tennis Federation uses Flockler’s social wall to boost fan engagement during their games.
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Lets you promote exclusive content like UGC videos from fans through your website without relying on third-party apps.
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Helps you build social proof and increase merchandise sales by embedding fan reviews on merch pages.
Pricing: Starts at $110/month
Free Trial: Available
2. Monterosa
Monterosa offers over 40+ mini apps to keep its fanbase engaged across screens, stadiums, mobile apps and websites. It gives ready-made experiences best suited for specific sports like soccer, rugby, and motorsports that you can use to build the perfect fan engagement ecosystem.
Star Feature: Montersora’s ‘event centres’ is the modern alternative to live TV. It brings together live commentary, game stats and polls under one roof to give fans an interactive and immersive viewing experience.
Pros:
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Has gamification features like trivia challenges, prediction games and voting to nudge inactive fans to engage more.
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Offers sports data visualization to help bettors make informed decisions and raise their odds.
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Can be rolled out in multiple languages effortlessly to target local and global audiences.
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Uses leaderboards, scoreboards and exclusive rewards to keep the ‘engagement fire’ alive and boost fan loyalty.
Cons
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Since Monetsora’s pricing policy is not transparent, you will have to reach out to their sales team to know more.
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No free trial
Pricing: Unavailable
Free Trial: Unavailable
3. Choicely
Choicely is a no-code app builder that lets you build fan engagement platforms in less than a day. It offers various engagement tools, such as surveys, polls and social media integrations, to help you build rapport with your fans.
Star Feature: Choicely, with its Gobi Stories integration, lets you add Insta-like stories to your sports fan engagement app. This is a great feature for updating fans about the latest news regarding different clubs, teams and players.
Pros:
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Offers gamification features like leaderboards, polls, surveys, result predictions and battles to engage fans before, during and after matches.
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Updates content from your website and social media platforms to the app in real-time to ensure fans have access to the latest content every time.
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Allows you to send push notifications to drive the audience to the app during important events like player meet-and-greets, post-match discussions and games.
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Has monetization features to sell tickets and merchandise and boost partnerships and sponsorships.
Cons:
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Some users on G2 think there’s a learning curve and are unhappy with their current onboarding resources.
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Delayed response time is another issue, according to G2 reviews.
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Teams without a good understanding of their needs might find it challenging to build what they need.
Pricing: Starts from €499/month for 500 users
Free Trial: Available
4. Many Digital
Many Digital is a one-stop solution for fan engagement, sponsorship activation and revenue growth. With Many Digital, you can build white-label fan engagement platforms for single and multiple teams in under two weeks.
Star Feature: Many Digital supports fan profile segmentation and gives brands information like their fans’ favorite teams, seats and even their favorite food. This is especially useful for platforms catering to fans from multiple teams to ensure they run campaigns relevant to each audience segment.
Pros:
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Includes exclusive games like ‘Man of the Match’, quizzes, betting, and vouchers to urge users to spend more time on the app.
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Gives real-time updates and reminders through push notifications to boost in-app engagement.
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Lets you run fan loyalty and sponsorship programs to retain fans and attract new sponsorship opportunities.
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Supports digital sponsorship activation and lets teams and stakeholders run hyper-targeted banner campaigns to generate more revenue.
Cons:
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The pricing policy isn’t transparent. You will have to contact their sales team for more details.
Pricing: Unavailable
Free Trial: Unavailable
5. Fanprime
Fanprime calls itself the ‘Shopify of Digital Fan Loyalty’ as it tracks and analyzes all your fan interactions across multiple social channels to boost your engagement through relevant content. The tool offers a raft of features for this, such as gamification, loyalty programs, etc.
Star Feature: Fanprime’s star feature is its ‘Hall of Fans’, a fan leaderboard based on which top fans get redeemable NFT cards for their loyalty.
Pros:
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Incentivizes fans for specific actions and lets them trade it for merchandise, tickets or across third-party loyalty programs
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Lets you easily customize the app with your interface, logo, and colors.
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Integrates with major social media platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc., and captures fan engagement data.
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Gives fan engagement analytics to find and target top fans to boost your ROI.
Cons:
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CRM, SSO and Customer Data Platform (CDP) integration is only available in Leader( €999/month) and Elite(custom) plans.
Pricing: Starts at €699 per month
Free Trial: Unavailable
6. Softtek
Softtek brings together different social media platforms and monetization avenues to build a fan engagement ecosystem that aligns with your brand and overall marketing strategy.
Star Feature: Like Flockler, Softtek offers engagement strategies for both in-stadium and online fan engagement.
Pros:
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Offers 3-tier membership options (free, paid and merit-based) to build a loyal fan following with exclusive content and perks.
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It has features like smart segmentation and real-time targeting to deliver relevant content to the right audience.
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Let brands host watch parties to allow in-venue and virtual fans to engage with each other and foster a sense of community.
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Tracks fan data to help sponsors find the right fans and maximize their investment.
Cons:
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Softtek’s pricing policy isn’t transparent.
Pricing: Unavailable
Free Trial: Unavailable
7. Livelike
Livelike, like Monterosa and Flockler, offers a suite of engagement features to direct more traffic to your official website or app. It revolutionizes the traditional viewing experience through co-watching, gamification and real-time stats.
Star Feature: Token-gated chats are a star feature offered by Livelike. They allow users to access exclusive content, such as celebrity or location-specific chats, in exchange for NFTs.
Pros:
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Offers customization options to ensure the engagement features align with the rest of the brand app interface, such as the brand logo and colors.
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It uses gamification solutions such as polls, surveys, leaderboards and scoring to increase engagement and the time users spend on the app.
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Lets users ask questions or raise concerns through the ‘Ask Me Anything’ interactive feature.
Cons
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Doesn’t integrate with social media apps.
Pricing: On request
Free Trial: Unavailable
How to pick the right fan engagement tool?
While there’s no dearth of fan engagement platforms in the market, picking the right one that suits your specific needs and budget is a daunting task. But here are some must-have features you should look out for to find the right one:
1. Multi-channel integrations: 77% of sports fans rely on social media channels to stay updated on their favorite sports and teams, according to a study by Future Platforms. So, ensure the fan engagement technology you choose integrates with major social media channels like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook. These integrations help you share content across platforms and direct the audience from these channels to your fan engagement platforms.
2. Gamification: Gamification is one of the easiest avenues to drive fan engagement and build fan loyalty. Hence, always look out for the gamification features your engagement apps offer. Some of the common gamification features include polls, betting, surveys, etc.
3. Personalization: One thing that distinguishes social media platforms from fan engagement apps is their ability to provide personalized experiences and exclusive content. Pay attention to the profiling and fan segmentation features offered by these platforms to gauge the degree of personalization each platform can offer.
4. Reporting Capabilities: Investing in fan engagement without tracking the metrics is like throwing darts in the dark. A good fan engagement platform should throw light on your engagement rates and conversion rates. Knowing this data helps realign your fan engagement efforts to target the relevant audience better.
5. Integration with CRMs and sales and marketing platforms: Tying your fan engagement efforts to your other marketing strategies is important to gauge the success of your overall marketing efforts. On top of that, CRM integrations also play a role in delivering the right content to the right audience at the right time. So, go for a platform that integrates with major CRMs and marketing platforms.
Why should you invest in a fan engagement platform?
A fan engagement platform brings fans closer to their favorite teams, sponsors get more return on investment, and sports teams get the limelight they deserve. But if you need more convincing, here are 3 additional reasons why you need a sports fan engagement platform:
Expand reach and build brand authority
By digitizing fan engagement, sports marketers can expand their reach beyond in-stadium fans. Fan engagement platforms offer multiple features to bring together in-stadium and virtual fans, like live streaming, polls and bets, fellow fan interaction and social media integrations. This helps you target and monetize your fans across the globe cost-effectively.
Another way an engagement platform expands a sports entity’s reach is by leveraging the celebrity status of top players. For instance, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are popular names in Football, and their teams can ride the tide by utilizing their stardom to attract more fans globally.
Build customer loyalty through personalized experiences
A fan engagement platform records your audience’s interactions and preferences to deliver personalized and relevant content. When you deliver targeted content this way to the right audience at the right time, they are more likely to engage with it or even respond to your merchandising campaigns.
For example, if a fan interacts more with Arsenal FC’s UGC content, you can tip the ‘engagement’ scales by pushing more such content into their feed.
Boost fan merchandise sales
A fan engagement platform identifies fans who are most likely to interact, buy, and stay loyal to you in the long term. With this intel, you can target super fans through your merchandising campaigns and bring in more revenue with less effort.
Wrapping Up
Highlighting the pivotal role of fan engagement in sports marketing, Remy Brooks, Joint Managing Director of Future Platforms, states “fan engagement is absolutely key for any sporting institution, rights holder, governing body or even the individual sportsperson, as engagement is where growth comes from.” By piggybacking on a fan engagement platform, sports teams and organizations can amplify their engagement efforts, and open more avenues to increase revenue.
So, if you haven’t already invested in one, choose the one that best suits your needs from the 7 best fan engagement platforms available in 2024.
FAQs
1. What is a fan engagement platform?
A fan engagement platform is a software designed to boost fan engagement. It allows sports leagues and organizations to share their exclusive content and gives fans an opportunity to connect with their favorite teams or players and engage with their content.
