Fan loyalty is earned, not owned: Other Media at Milton Keynes Tech Week

On Monday 12 October, our Director of Client Success, Jamie Yabsley, joined Lewis Bullen, Rajesh Subramanian and Peter Marshall for a panel on fan data, identity and the connected matchday. Now in its second year, Milton Keynes Tech Week runs from 12 to 16 October and brings together founders, investors, businesses and policymakers in one of the UK’s fastest-growing tech cities. Last year’s event drew more than 23,000 people across 30+ events.

The themes we discussed reflect the work we do every day as fan engagement partners, helping sports clubs build stronger, longer-lasting relationships with their supporters. Here’s our view on what it takes to get fan engagement right.

Trust comes before data

Clubs have something most brands are desperate for: customers (supporters in this case) who are emotionally invested and want to engage. But that loyalty has to be earned and kept, and it doesn’t come with an automatic right to their data. Supporters choose to share their time, money and personal details, and the clubs that earn the most get three things right.

• Trust. Being open about what data is collected, why, and how it’s used. Clubs that are transparent end up with more data, not less, because supporters feel comfortable sharing it.
• Value. Giving supporters something tangible in return, such as priority tickets, discounts or access they couldn’t get elsewhere. Signing up for a newsletter isn’t a fair exchange.
• Relevance. Using what they know to make the experience genuinely better, with content, offers and match day services that fit the individual supporter rather than generic marketing.

In our experience, a poor data strategy can do more harm than having none at all. Fans quickly notice when their information is used only to sell to them, and trust is far harder to rebuild than it is to lose.

A single supporter view is only the start

Most clubs still run ticketing, retail, membership, catering and community work on separate systems, so the same supporter appears as several different people. Bringing those records together into a single view is an important foundation, but it isn’t the finished product. The value lies in what a club does with it.

That’s often where clubs struggle. Many media and marketing teams are small, with one person covering the men’s, women’s and academy sides across every fixture. Without the right tools and processes, even the best CRM will sit underused. We help clubs close that gap, combining the technology with practical guidance on how to put it to work.

AI as an extra pair of hands

The most valuable use of AI in sport today is a practical one: making sense of how supporters actually behave. Every visit to the app, ticket purchase, video watched or push notification opened tells a club something about what that supporter cares about. Most clubs collect these signals but have neither the time nor the tools to turn them into anything useful.

The behavioural technology we provide changes that. It captures supporters’ interactions across a club’s digital products, and AI groups them into meaningful segments based on what they really do, not on assumptions or a single demographic field. Clubs get audiences that are ready to target: lapsed season ticket holders, families who only attend weekend fixtures, fans who follow the women’s team, or app users who regularly buy at half-time.

Those segments can be used straight away across the club’s own channels, from app notifications and email to ticketing and retail campaigns, so the right offer reaches the right supporter at the right time. Because every segment is built from supporters’ own interactions with the club, and used to give them something more relevant, it strengthens the relationship rather than eroding the trust it depends on.

Where the connected match day is heading

Over the next decade, we expect supporters to be recognised as one person across ticketing, apps, Wi-Fi, food and retail, and to have clear control over the data their club holds. Matchday will become the high point of a year-round relationship rather than the only moment a club knows who its fans are. Supporters already expect this level of experience from services such as Netflix and Spotify, and they will increasingly expect it from their club.

Collaboration makes it achievable

Few clubs, particularly below the Premier League, can build all of this alone. That’s where our client network makes the difference. We work with Anderlecht, Rangers, Norwich, Plymouth, Swansea, Oxford, Bolton amongst a growing network of 30 clubs across football and every club we partner with benefits from a proven platform and from what we’ve learned working alongside the others.

New features, integrations and insights developed for one club can be shared across the network, so clubs of every size get access to technology and expertise they could never build or afford on their own. It means they can focus on competing where it matters most: on the pitch.

How Other Media helps clubs

We’re fan engagement partners, not just an app developer. We give clubs the technology they need, then guide them in using it well, drawing on our knowledge of the industry and what works for supporters. The tools span match day and membership apps, websites and the integrations that bring ticketing, retail, CRM and content together, so a club can recognise the same fan wherever they show up.

We also know what life looks like inside a club media team. So we build tools that make life better for supporters and easier for the people who run them, not systems that simply create more work.

Our thanks to Matt Simms for the invitation, to Lewis, Rajesh and Peter for a great conversation, and to everyone at Milton Keynes Tech Week.