15 May 2024 | NEWS & Way Forward
Fans are the backbone of all the stakeholders in the esports industry, especially the esports teams. The pursuit of bagging bigger and stable sponsorships has turned the attention of leading esports teams towards building a more engaged fan base. Moreover, Effective fan engagement is as important as winning championships from sponsor’s perspective.
Leading esport Teams are exploring ideas that overcome the challenges in conventional channels of engagement like twitter, twitch and discord.
Team Vitality figured out, much sooner than others, that fans expect a deeper connection with their beloved teams. This lead them to create a mobile app which acts as a virtual ecosystem for fans. With this mobile application fans can create their own avatars, complete quests and win exclusive experiences. Moreover, this app makes sure that every action a fan takes for their favourite team is noted, appreciated and reciprocated.
“Socios.com is an exciting and innovative way for us to offer our fans new experiences, a means to engage with the team they love, and a part to play in the decision-making process of the club. We are proud to be the first esports partner of Socios.com in shaping the future of entertainment, alongside big sports names such as Juventus, West Ham United and Paris Saint-Germain.“ - Johan Sundstein, CEO of OG Sports
This app gives exclusive powers to the fans like getting insider content, predict matches, and also ability to become a part of the decision making on important club matters. A different and healthier approach than the blockchain one but with its own limitations.
These apps serve as invaluable tools for esports organizations, enabling them to deepen their relationships with fans, gather valuable insights, and drive revenue through targeted promotions and merchandise sales. As the esports landscape continues to evolve, dedicated fan engagement apps are poised to play an increasingly pivotal role, offering a gateway to unprecedented levels of connectivity and engagement between teams and their loyal supporters.
The launch of esports fan experience apps by leading teams has increased fan expectations substantially. Once, a good thing to have, has now become an expectation necessary to be fulfilled.
However, this shift in fan expectations has brought a set of challenges for both teams and fans that needs to be addressed, for stable transition to the fan engagement revolution. Building own fan engagement application for the team is a questionable step from longterm perspective. An app matching the industry standards of functionality and aesthetics costs somewhere between 80000 €& 100000€ for building and then at least 10000€/year for maintenance. Furthermore, once the app is built, constant market research to optimize and enhance the app become the team’s priority. Regular rollouts of new features, and organising of in app events are essential to maintain fan experience. All these end up making the teams feel that they are a SAAS company rather than an esports team.
The difficulty of making a fan engagement app and its misalignment with the vision & Mission of esports teams can be solved by involving a new stakeholder, who is responsible for constant development and management of fan engagement ecosystem.
Brands like Kboom.gg have taken up the responsibility and started building platforms that facilitate teams to engage with their fans. Kboom.gg also established Kboom Fanalytics, an esport fan engagement research division, where in they conduct surveys and researches to know what fans really want and thereby develop features. Recently, they conducted the first of its kind event, called Clash Of Clubs, where in the clubs and their fans bases competed with each other. The event statistics, of Clash Of Clubs, prove the need for a fan engagement ecosystem in the industry and also the viability of Kboom.gg’s idea.
