Plenty of industries have moved into the application landscape, and sports are no exception. A mobile app allows an organization to own real estate on a consumer’s mobile device, with its logo proudly displayed on the screen among all their favorite games, social platforms, calendar, photo apps and more. It’s also expensive. An application with general extensions will easily cost more than one hundred thousand dollars for the initial build and a similar annual cost for maintenance each year – all of that before adding the cost of staff salaries and time to manage the app. So, is an app even worth it? As Minnesota United considered its application at the end of its initial contract term, we spoke with several in the app space to determine how we could improve upon what we’d already done and whether or not having an app at all made sense for our organization.

What We Learned:

• Loyalty programs are an unsustainable use of resources
• Applications allow organizations the opportunity for moment-based marketing
• Traffic to the application is driven nearly 100% by matches and events
• Offers an opportunity to have conversations with consumers at the individual level
• Automation allows for maximum use of resources
• App is a place that can drive conversations, revenue and engagement for the club

Why Choose To Build

Building an application without first considering why, what and how will lead to money wasted. A simple question was posed to me while we were considering removing our application from the budget altogether: Do you see yourself having an app in five years? In ten years? If you are planning on having an app in the future, what is holding you back from building an app now and what resources do you need to make your application function successfully within the guidelines your organization has laid out? A proper app can service several key functions:

• Lead Building: Integrations within an app will allow you to develop your customer database and build upon what already exists within your system. Creating gates to access the WiFi in-stadium through the app, accounts within the app and purchasing features, plus geo-tagging options will give you better insight on who your fans are and allow you to granularly market and build campaigns around what your fans might enjoy and engage with.
• Digital Ticketing: There are numerous benefits to digital ticketing, which is why a majority of venues have moved away from traditional printed tickets and are now opting into using digital tickets; it’s better for the environment, it cost less to produce, it allows you to partner with a third-party vendor more easily and there are no shipping fees or clumsy pickup requirements for fans. With an application, all of this can be contained in one simple location. Fans can simply open the app on their phone, and show their ticket to enter the facility.
• Direct Messaging: The ability to contact fans directly and even personalize the message based on where they are adds another dimension to your marketing strategy. Offer a discount when they walk through the gates on gameday, or an item when they show up to a watch party. Build fan loyalty, encourage push notifications and sell partnerships while enhancing the fan experience.
• News/Content: It’s another platform for your fans to interact with the team and the content the organization is creating. This means more platforms and more reach for partnership activations and it also means a more engaged and knowledgeable fanbase.

Of course, there are costs associated with each of these items. Integrations that will need to be added, whether you choose to build your app in-house or you choose to go with a third party vendor. You’ll also need dedicated staff to manage the application and to get the most out of your activations within the app.

Vendor Options

VenueNext
Minnesota United signed its first application agreement with VenueNext in 2018 when it opened Allianz Field in Saint Paul. Minnesota United CEO Chris Wright had a relationship with the VenueNext CEO Anthony Perez, and the two leveraged that relationship to build the app. Since then, VenueNext has discontinued its app-building side and has focused more on its in-stadium service and activation integrations which can be used in other venue-apps. As such, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to use VenueNext to build out your app – since that’s not what they are focused on doing and they will ultimately subcontract another vendor to build the app for them.

YinzCam
If you are willing to invest in the application, YinzCam undoubtably offers to most functionality for the dollar. Within the app space, YinzCam offers opportunities to drive partnership revenue through AR functionalities, custom messaging and ad placement within the app and it allows organizations to communicate directly at the individual level with different groups, based on what they’re doing and where they’re going. It allows for full customization, with dozens of tech providers that layer on top of the YinzCam base.

• Cost: $95,000 Annual (base)
• Pros:
  • Additional Functionality: YinzCam has basically limitless abilities and adaptability because it was built for other tech providers to layer on top of it with their own apps, for an additional fee.
  • Technical Adaptability: YinzCam is the king of app development for sports organizations – on top of the latest trends, and constantly updating software for peak performance.
  • Cost: This is the least expensive option for the base product.
• Cons:
  • Large Company: Being the best means that a lot of organizations use YinzCam and it also means that their attention is often elsewhere. While YinzCam will assign dedicated staff, they manage other properties as well and there is a delay from requests to a satisfying response.
  • Usability: Inconsistent updates from the YinzCam side leads to issues within the app – from ticketing not working as expected to delayed updates on content within the app and API integrations.
  • Functionality: They'll link up with any third party and add that third party oftentimes to the detriment to the product load speed and performance.
  • Analytics: The in-app analytics are clunky and often incorrect and it can take a delayed period of time for YinzCam to synch up with any external analytics you might have set up, e.g. Google Analytics.

Custom Created
Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish with your application, this is a viable option. By building a custom app in-house, you sacrifice some of the business objectives for functionality and uniqueness. The app can be built specifically with the organizational goals in mind. However, there are some limitations, the biggest of those being the lack of custom integrations to treat customer types differently – a message center that targets different fans and an ability to connect and automate alongside the existing digital ecosystem. If the intention is for the app to be the center of all your technology, this likely will not work, with all of the manual processes that have to take place in order of the app to function. Instead, you’d need to rely on more traditional digital outlets like email and text campaigns to have individual conversations with groups. This app serves as a place where content lives, tickets are accessed, stats are observed and fans can interact on gameday.

• Cost: $80,000 annual + $125,000 full time tech developer
• Pros:
  • Look & Feel: The look and feel of the app would be entirely your organization. You can customize how it looks and ensure that it functions in the same way.
  • Dedicated Staff – There is a dedicated member of the team with full attention on the app 24/7.
• Cons:
  • Time: It takes time to build a new app. Time and an investment in resources/staff.
  • Cost: This is the most expensive option.
  • Functionality: A lack of custom integrations would mean that you’re stuck with a base design, whatever that might look like, and you’re not be able to layer on other technology or automate experiences in the same way as you would with a technology vendor.
  • Adaptability: It is difficult to keep up with latest trends with just one person assigned to building and maintaining the app and we would not be able to invest in new technology in the same way that an organization dedicated to building apps might be able to.
  • Personnel: Having an app that is built and maintained by one person means that you have an app that is controlled by a single entity and if that person should leave, they would be nearly impossible to replace.

FanReach
This is a good option for a smaller dedicated team that is less concerned with the functionality of the app and more concerned with a responsive partner. Teams that have opted to work with FanReach have done so because they have had problems with bigger agencies – and while FanReach isn’t small, they do have better customer service. Functionality within the app is similar to that of YinzCam, but there is just less customization options. There are far less technology partners layering on top of what FanReach is doing, so if there are unique things being done in that space it generally requires FanReach to create those customizations from scratch.

• Cost: ~$100,000 Annual w/Rover
• Pros:
  • Responsiveness: One of the reasons some organizations opt into using FanReach versus YinzCam is that while YinzCam offers a larger variety of customization options and adaptations within their app, they are not equipped to handle the large customer base that they currently manage. FanReach does less, with less, and so they can offer more touchpoints and dedicated staff when working with teams.
  • Open Dialog: FanReach is open to adding new functionality to an app based on feedback from its customers.
  • Workrate: FanReach is able to turn around projects quickly when asked by clients. They are currently migrating content into a new engine, which means much of the work for building a new app will already have been done.
• Cons:
  • Rover: Content is feed driven, but you’d likely need to have additional add-ons like rover to handle push notifications and creating custom content experiences.
  • Customization: While the build is similar to YinzCam, without the technology layered on top of the app there is a lot less that this app can do.

Overall

Deciding on what vendor to use, to build an application on your own, or whether or not you need an app at all really comes down to organizational goals. It’s important to ask yourselves what you want to do in the app space now vs. what do you want to do in the app space in the future. Is it essential to your organization that there is an app this year? Do you believe there is value in adding an app in the future? Is it worth the investment now or would you be better off investing later and what are the overall goals for a customized application and what would you need to be successful in the app space.

An application should be able to bring in more money that it costs to operate – when given the proper resources and team to pursue corporate partnership opportunities, manage the app and create marketing campaigns around the app, but the organization will need to make an initial investment that will allow it to be built into something with a business value.