The problem
In the Balkan regions, football leagues are much less competitive. There are a few competitive clubs in each league, sometimes only one. Therefore the competition usually gets decided midway through the season, if not it's two clubs competing for the title, And this is every year.
Exposition
I was contacted by a marketing agency to see if there can be a software solution to this problem. Since I was a football fan myself I was aware of this issue and could concur that it indeed exists. The team was formed and I was given a go-ahead to do research and see what is it that is going to keep fans coming to the stadium even if the competition has been decided long before.
Research
Talking to numerous football fans in my area, older and younger, loyal, and the so-called hobbyists who go to games every now and then, I got the impression that the younger generations who are supposed to be the backbone of sports brands’ customer bases in the decades to come engage with the brands on a more superficial level. Unlike older generations who show their support by showing up to the games, the younger fans choose to engage with the brand mostly online by watching highlights, through social media, or on betting platforms.
This was proven to me when I spend the next couple of weekends watching football matches live at the stadium. I couldn't not notice that a lot of people are holding their phones and posting stories and engaging online even at the stadium. Whenever a penalty was whistled, people were watching it play out through their camera lenses. This gave me an angle.
Secondary research
Through secondary resources, I found out that multiple successful increases in fan engagement have been through gamification. One of those examples is the famous Fantasy PL game. FPL is proven to increase the value of clubs and players in the premier league by up to 20% because people are more aware of them because they get more attention because of the game.
Gamification
Having the above mentioned facts in mind, an idea to design a mobile game that engages fans in a competition to go to football games and record as many goals as they can with a limited number of tries.
In order to keep fans engaged throughout the season, this competition is stretched from the beginning to the end of the football season. Fans have a limited amount of tries to try to record a goal in a limited time frame. If they succeeded they are given points and are stacked in a table with other fans that watch the games from the same football competition.
Additionally, in order to further increase engagement I added the option for fans to create private leagues where they are able to compete with their friends only on who is going to go to more games and record more goals.
Experiment and the resolution
I drew a couple of storyboards and pitched the idea to the marketing team. We decided to create a little experiment on the next local games to see if this idea could work. We set up a booth at a local game that informed fans that they will be given rewards if they present a recording of a goal at the end of the game to the promoters.
This returned good results since more people came back to the booth with recordings than had previously come to the booth to ask what it was all about. I used this opportunity to ask them how many times they tried and failed before recording a goal, and also to see the length of the recordings. This was to come in handy later when we had to configure the amount of time the fans will have per recording and also the number of tries per half-game.
Since the results were positive, I went ahead and created a clickable prototype from wireframes. While at it, the marketing agency pitched the idea to several football agencies and one of the outright bought the idea. The game is now in the process of redesign and development for the next season.