Other Media Clubs Recognised Amongst Football’s Best Run

Two reports published this summer have looked closely at how football clubs are run and how well they engage with fans. The Fair Game Index and Think Fan Engagement’s Fan Engagement Index have each assessed and ranked clubs and recognise those who are outperforming the field.

Our Highlights

There were a number of focal points for us in the Fair Game Index and Fan Engagement Index. We know from our day-to-day relationships with many of the top-performing clubs that what they do matters to them and so it’s been great to see that recognised in the industry.

Fair Game Index:

— Cambridge United top all 164 EFL clubs in Fair Game Index, behind only Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United in the entire football pyramid

— The club that we’ve launched many football firsts* with, Swansea City, came joint top in the Fan & Community Engagement metrics alongside Norwich City

*app-in tickets, including season tickets; voice skill; iOS homescreen widgets

Fan Engagement Index:

— All 3 clubs achieving a Gold award are League One clubs (Exeter City, Carlisle United, Lincoln City – all having partnered with us this summer)

— No Premier League club featured in the Top 10

— Top 10 clubs were made up of 5 clubs from League One, 3 from League Two, and 2 from the Championship

Cambridge United Excel in Fair Game Index

Formed in early 2021, Fair Game represents 34 men’s professional football clubs and works with the nation’s experts to develop solutions for the problems football faces.

Now in its third iteration the Fair Game Index, compiled from publicly available data, is the most comprehensive analysis of men’s football ever. It looks at how well clubs are run, taking into account metrics in 4 key areas: financial sustainability, good governance, equality standards, and fan & community engagement.

Clubs are ranked within their respective Leagues and also Nationally. The Top 10 comprised 5 Premier League teams, 2 from the Championship, 2 from League One, and 1 League Two club.

Most notably League One side Cambridge United not only ranked as the top club out of the 164 English Football League clubs but came 3rd in the entire pyramid behind only Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United. This remarkable achievement reflects the efforts going in to the club’s change programme – now owning the Cledara Abbey Stadium, building new training facilities, and involving the supporters very closely in the club business.

This commitment to ensure the club is run well for everyone is reflected in the care that has gone into the design of the club’s new digital fan experience. The website launched this summer, supporting the fan and community engagement efforts but also the financial sustainability, with better user journeys and a mobile-specific app enabling more conversion through ticket, retail and hospitality sales, as well as packages and memberships.

EFL Clubs Lead the Way in Fan Engagement Index

Think Fan Engagement have produced their sixth Fan Engagement Index. According to the authors the index provides the only objective measurement of fan engagement in English men’s football, benchmarked against other clubs, recognising and rewarding clubs that practise good fan engagement, and helping them to identify where they could improve.

The report surveyed all 92 clubs in the English Premier League and English Football League and ranked all in one table.

All of the top 3 clubs, that achieved a Gold award, are League One sides and all have partnered with Other Media this summer: Exeter City (1st), Carlisle United (2nd), Lincoln City (3rd).

Only 5 more clubs scored highly enough to achieve a silver award and a further 2 of those are Other Media partners: Cambridge United (6th) and Swansea City (8th) – both clubs that performed notably well in the Fair Game Index also.

The top 3 clubs have all launched a brand new website this summer, with app coming soon, and have chosen to partner with an agency that understands the importance of fan and community engagement.

A Note on Family Excellence

As well as these two thought-provoking reports from independent bodies outside of the EFL, the EFL themselves have an award scheme that recognises how clubs fare in the quality of their match experience.

The EFL’s Family Excellence Scheme assesses the family experience clubs provide, and rewards the best with Gold, Silver, or Bronze status (introduced for the first time in 2023/24) for the quality of their match experience across a range of touchpoints including ticket purchase, matchday entertainment, accessibility, facilities and communications.

Exeter City and Lincoln City, top performers in both the Fair Game Index and Fan Engagement Index, were awarded Gold by the EFL. Other top performers Carlisle United, Cambridge City, and Swansea City, were awarded silver by the EFL, demonstrating consistently high performance when it comes to running a club well.

Of special note in the EFL Family Excellence awards is Other Media partner club Plymouth Argyle who were awarded the inaugural Family Excellence Club of the Season.

Doing the Right Thing (and doing it well)

That so many of the clubs we work with are being recognised for doing the right thing by their fans, their community, and everyone involved in football, is reassuring as we pride ourselves on doing the right thing by our partner clubs and by their supporters.

These top-performing clubs choosing to partner with us to power their digital fan experience really ratifies our position in the market as the team to have in your corner when you want to do the right thing and do it well.