How Bayer 04 Leverkusen turned fan content into a full fan experience with Flockler

Founded in 1904, Bayer 04 Leverkusen counts millions of fans across the world. In the 2023/2024 season, not only did they make history by winning their first-ever Bundesliga title, they became the first team in league history to finish with a perfect undefeated record. 

Behind the scenes, a lean team manages all club-owned digital platforms, from the website, to their fan app, keeping millions of their fans connected to the club wherever they are.

An untapped opportunity: how do you take social content beyond social media?

When Bayer 04 Leverkusen first recognized that they wanted to tap into their fanbase and share social media posts beyond their native platforms, it started with research. They didn’t have a problem they were trying to solve but they knew what they wanted to achieve. And in the world of social media, 10 years is a lifetime, and so their previous process to pull this kind of content was nonexistent.

But the club wanted to be different and their online presence was something that they wanted to enhance by aggregating social media content beyond the platforms themselves. For them, the website may have been the starting point, but the ambition grew from there.

From a single feed to full fan infrastructure: a decade of building on Flockler

Bayer 04 Leverkusen discovered Flockler through research nearly a decade ago, and they never had a reason to leave. It’s become part of the infrastructure that the club has built on, and built around, for nearly ten years.

There was no lengthy onboarding or steep learning curve for new team members. It was intuitive enough to pick up independently, and the help documentation and support team were there when needed.

That seamless handoff is a quiet kind of proof that the partnership has stood the test of time. Responsive support, an intuitive platform, and the flexibility to build custom through the Flockler content API have helped Bayer 04 Leverkusen grow their social content far beyond where it started.

Growing from a single website to an entire fan experience

What began as automating and aggregating their social content on their website eventually expanded across Bayer 04 Leverkusen’s digital and physical footprint. 

Their club app brought social content to fans on the go. 

Digital screens inside their fan world experience and LED walls outside the stadium itself brought it to the physical world, with rotating galleries that welcome fans as they walk through the gates. 

By 2024, Bayer Leverkusen had been building on Flockler for nearly a decade. When the club wanted to bring their first ever Bundesliga championship back to life with their fans, they had the platform to do it. 

UGC campaign and the championship anniversary

Following the biggest success the club has ever had, Bayer 04 Leverkusen wanted to bring that moment back to life, and to the fans who lived it. 

Using Flockler’s Submission Forms, they built a landing page where supporters could submit and share their images and memories from the day they became champions for the first time.

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What 10 years of Flockler looks like in practice

Bayer 04 Leverkusen isn't tracking Flockler ROI in a spreadsheet. They don't need to.

One person in the Team of Digital Development manages multiple use cases. Automated feeds run without daily intervention and notifications are proactively sent out when there’s something wrong with a feed that might require investigation. A UGC campaign that helped thousands of fans relive the biggest moment in the club’s history.

That’s not a metric. It’s infrastructure. 

And it’s one that their developers can continually build and rely on.

A partner, not just a platform

The partnership between Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Flockler spans multiple team members on both sides for over a decade. The fast response times from day one continue to the current team today, and feedback has always been part of that relationship.

What made it work across five different applications wasn't just the product. It was the Flockler content API. Bayer 04 Leverkusen's developers could configure Flockler to fit each use case precisely, from a fan app to a triangular LED wall outside a stadium. That flexibility is already shaping what comes next. 

Building on what works

After fans shared more than 3,000 images of their championship moments, Bayer 04 Leverkusen is planning more UGC campaigns and made a clear request: AI-powered moderation extended to the content that’s submitted outside of social platforms.

That’s now live. Garde AI automatically filters content collected through Submission Forms before it reaches the moderation queue to catch anything inappropriate without manual intervention.

What started as a single social feed on a website has grown into a full fan experience spanning screens, apps, and stadium walls. It's a reminder that a brand doesn’t have to create everything itself. Some of its most meaningful content is what its community is already creating. Flockler has become part of how Bayer 04 Leverkusen brings fans closer to the club. 

And if the last ten years are anything to go by, they're just getting started.