From the stands
Correct as of 11 Jul 2026- Where do sports apps actually lose fans?
- The published audits agree with the terraces: matchday screens buried under content feeds, ticket and merch checkouts with needless friction, zero awareness of which team the fan supports, and streaming paywalls that hide what you get. The fix is designing the five revenue journeys first - tickets, streaming, merch, matchday spend, sponsorship - and letting content hang off them.
- Agency, consultancy or platform - who do we sign?
- Answer one question first: do you know which fans make you money? No: start with the data bench (Two Circles, Seven League). Yes, and the app is the weak link: sign a product-design agency (Humbleteam, Work & Co, ustwo). Need live interaction by kickoff next season: license the platform (Monterosa). Big rebuilds usually pair two of the three.
- What do the fees look like?
- Numbers visible in public during 2026: fan-app audits $15-40k, full app redesigns $60-200k, retained product partnerships $20-50k a month. The flagship tier - R/GA, AKQA class - plays in a division above all of these.
- Who sets this table and on what?
- People who build digital products in sport, scoring on the four point-winning columns above. Shipped fan-facing product outweighs campaign reels every time, each entry is labeled by what you're actually signing, no one bought their spot, and every row links out so you can check the form yourself.
- We're a mid-table European club - who do we call?
- A product specialist with league references, not a global brand agency; the budget should buy shipped screens, not overhead. From this table the shortlist reads Humbleteam first (four leagues, published sports UX research) with ustwo as the craft-led alternative.