Projects /
Sport
A digital factory that gets ideas to fans
How a UK football club with plenty of ideas but no digital team set up a dedicated digital factory that prototypes and builds its activations, so good ideas reach fans.
Client
Confidential
Sector
Sport
Services
Innovate More Accelerator, Activation Studio
Delivered
Digital factory, prototype pipeline, live activations
The outcome
Weeks
not seasons, to reach fans
Good ideas now reach fans in weeks instead of waiting months for an agency brief.
In-house
digital factory
Designers and developers now work to the club's priorities, not an agency's schedule.
Live
prototypes for sponsors
The club can show sponsors a working prototype instead of a slide.
The Challenge
The club had no shortage of ideas for fans and partners. What it lacked was the capability to build them. Ideas waited months for an agency brief or sat in a backlog behind matchday operations. By the time anything shipped, the moment had passed and often the sponsor had too.
WHY IT MATTERS: INDUSTRY DATA
4
x
Faster to market
Up to, for truly agile teams
72
%
Fans using sports apps
Across 12 countries
40
%
More personalised revenue
Fast vs slow growers
What we did
1
Set up the factory
We set up a dedicated digital factory, with designers and developers working to the club’s priorities rather than an agency’s schedule.
2
Built a prototype pipeline
Every idea now moves through the same steps: a quick test with fans, a decision on whether to build, then a full launch for the ones that work.
3
Shipped activations
The factory builds activations in the club’s own brand, from fan games and polls to partner content, ready to put in front of sponsors.
We had great ideas but no digital capability to deliver them. Now a dedicated digital factory prototypes and builds our activations, so good ideas actually reach our fans.
Sporting Director, UK based Football Club
What happened next
Good ideas now reach fans in weeks, not seasons. The club can show sponsors a working prototype instead of a slide, which makes new partnerships easier to sell.
