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Fijian Drua partner with InCrowd Sports

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The Fijian Drua, the newest franchise in Super Rugby Pacific have appointed InCrowd Sports to lead its fan and digital strategy, starting with the launch of a new website – drua.rugby. 

The Fijian Drua, who will be playing home fixtures across Fiji and Australia in their first season, have been established to deliver a sustainable route for Fijian talent to play professional rugby, whilst also showcasing Fiji’s exciting style of play in the southern hemisphere’s biggest competition.

Key to the Fijian Drua’s growth strategy will be engaging the significant audience with interest in Fijian Rugby, so the club has appointed leading data, technology and sports marketing specialists InCrowd, who are helping build a digital ecosystem from the ground up to deliver personalised experiences and engaging content for fans in Fiji and around the world.

InCrowd has a proven track record of producing industry-leading fan technology, data solutions and professional services for a portfolio of clients that include URC (formerly PRO14 Rugby), Premiership Rugby, Euroleague Basketball, Formula 1, ECB, Rugby Football League and a number of Premier League and Championship football clubs.

In Australia and New Zealand, InCrowd currently delivers technology across 33 venues including the SCG, Stadium Australia and CommBank Stadium, as well as working with organisations such as Golf Australia and Netball Australia.

During the 2022 Super Rugby season, drua.rugby will have real time updates during match days, as well as latest news, statistical graphics, fan voting, competitions, player profiles, video galleries, interviews and other exclusive content.

The website has been built upon InCrowd’s digital experience platform, Bridge, which includes a sports specific headless CMS, digital asset manager, fan engagement tools, audience insights and tools that enable personalised content delivery and communications based on 1st party data.

As part of the partnership, InCrowd will support the Fijian Drua as they generate and collect more fan data, helping the club with its commercial strategy as well as personalising fan communications across multiple new channels as they are launched. Fijian Drua CEO, Brian Thorburn, said:

“We’re committed to offering our fans, supporters and stakeholders an outstanding digital experience when they engage with us online and DRUA.RUGBY is obviously the most critical component of this objective. We may be a brand new team but one with very strong roots. And even before running out for our first game, we have a strong global following and premium brand associations with major global players including Swire Shipping, New Balance, Fiji Airways, ANZ and Vodafone. Our partnership with InCrowd will further strengthen our engagement with our audiences at home and wherever they are overseas, with content and interactivity which will be unique to the Drua.”

InCrowd Head of Partnerships APAC Seb Lear, said:

“This is an incredibly exciting project which we are honoured to be part of. In a broader context, this is a game changer in the global rugby landscape by helping Fiji create a sustainable talent pathway and a commercial strategy that keeps the incredible Fijian talent in the Pacific. It’s been a pleasure to work with the Fijian Drua team over the last few months to begin to deliver great digital experiences for the passionate fans of Fijian Rugby. This fan first approach is a value at InCrowd’s core, with the foundation of the business built on helping sports organisations create direct relationships with their fans to drive commercial value, something that has been even more critical for every sport to focus on over the last 2 years.”

The Fijian Drua will play their first ever Super Rugby Pacific match against the NSW Waratahs at CommBank Stadium in Parramatta, Western Sydney on Friday 18 February.

InCrowd Welcomes Simon Thomas as Chairman

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With significant growth in the UK and International markets in the last three years, InCrowd has appointed Simon Thomas, as Chairman of its Board of Directors. A leader in the evolution of commercial sports marketing during his time at TEAM Marketing, FIFA and Fox, Thomas will guide the Board and shareholders, whilst offering strategic advice and support to the senior management team.

“We are absolutely thrilled that Simon has agreed to join InCrowd as Chairman. His appointment adds to a number of new senior executive appointments we have made in the past year. The level of experience that Simon brings both in terms of his standing in the industry and as a specialist in organisational transformation and development, should turbo-charge our next phase of growth across multiple new territories .”

Thomas adds, “I have great respect for Aidan; as the founder of Opta Sports, he has a great track record and enormous experience in this area. At InCrowd he has built a strong team and the progression of the business in just 6 years is impressive. Product innovation to crack the digital challenge is paramount, along with client success and the creation of strong and trusted relationships. It’s an exciting era for the business and I’m very happy to join the team.”

Over the last 18 months, sport has seen a distinct acceleration in its digital transformation, as organisations realise the importance of truly knowing, connecting and engaging with fans on a deeper and personalised level through better use of first party data and premium fan facing platforms.

In response to this, InCrowd chose to focus on product development, ideating, building and delivering new and innovative solutions to respond to the rapidly changing requirements of clients and their commercial partners. Over the last 2 years, InCrowd has almost doubled in size to over one hundred team members, with 65% of the workforce focussed on R&D.

At the heart of InCrowd’s product innovation is their Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP), Bridge, a “one stop shop” for querying and using customer data to create personalised fan experiences across digital platforms via a best in class headless CMS and direct to fan content, messaging and engagement tools, all analysed across a range of tailored reporting suites.

“The very foundation of our business lies in our belief that fans are your greatest asset and that creating great digital experiences through high-quality fan facing platforms, data driven content & messaging and innovative activations is the most effective way to drive swift ROI.” says Cooney. “We empower clients to be bold in their digital and data transformations and support them fully at every stage of their journey. These are the organisations that are now reaping the rewards and we’re excited to help others reach their full potential.”

Thomas agrees;

“We are in an era of digital disruption, and clearly the industry is moving towards greater and more effective use of data. InCrowd are market leaders in this space. Everyone’s talking about the need to connect directly with fans and consumers, but at the moment it seems to be more talk than action. InCrowd are actually making things happen, facilitating monumental digital changes for their clients and demonstrating tangible returns, which is one of the things that sets them apart.”

About Simon Thomas
A sports industry veteran, Simon will take on the role of Chairman alongside his role of Partner at Colgan Bauer. An influential boutique firm, Colgan Bauer offers international sports strategy consultancy for many of the world’s top governing bodies, rights holders and investors. Prior to this, Simon was Chief Commercial Officer at FIFA, where he extensively restructured the digital and commercial teams. His further experience includes 15 years at TEAM Marketing, UEFA’s commercial agency for the development of UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League competitions in various roles culminating in Chief Executive Officer; and 3 years as EVP Global Sport and Content Sales at Fox where he acted on rights acquisitions for Fox Sports internationally and established a global content sales team selling entertainment, factual and sports content. Simon also established his own advisory agency, Talisman Sport & Media.

For more information, contact enquiries@incrowdsports.com

RLWC2021 takeover for Our League

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The Rugby Football League, Rugby League World Cup (RLWC2021) and InCrowd and are thrilled to announce that RLWC2021 will stage a takeover of the Our League app this autumn.

The takeover will begin this month with regular Rugby League World Cup news being served to fans within Our League, as the final countdown to the tournament begins.

Then from mid-October, after the Betfred Super League and Women’s Super League Grand Finals, Our League will be devoted to the biggest ever celebration of Rugby League – as the Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair World Cups take centre stage, bringing World Cup content to Rugby League fans all over the world.

All the Our League features – Match Centre, Player of the Match polls, the Predictor Game and much more – will be given an RLWC2021 makeover which will remain all the way through to Finals weekend in late November. With Our League already serving a membership of more than 190,000 League supporters, RLWC2021 will have a flying start in developing a regular conversation with Rugby League fans. Mark Foster, the RFL’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “This is one of the most exciting partnerships since we launched Our League nearly four years ago.

RLWC2021 offers the sport of Rugby League its most exciting platform, and their takeover of Our League is the perfect way of bringing the tournament to life – both for existing loyal fans, and also the thousands of sports lovers who will be experiencing Rugby League for the first time.

We’ve spent the last four years working closely with InCrowd to develop Our League, ensuring it provides the features, information and rewards that Rugby League fans want, in an accessible and interactive way. The RLWC2021 takeover will take Our League to a new level – allowing new Rugby League fans on both sides of the globe to immerse themselves in our sport.”

B Hunter, RLWC2021 Digital and Content Director, said: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with the RFL and InCrowd in developing Our League for RLWC2021.

“The app will be the go-to source of information and entertainment for fans during the tournament. We encourage fans to download early to make sure they receive all the latest news, ticket and spectator information direct to their devices.”

“In this relationship with the RFL and InCrowd we are also proud to be able to make an investment back into the sport that will serve fans as a lasting legacy of the World Cup.”

Darren Parsons, InCrowd Senior Account & Insights Manager, said “We’re delighted to be able to support RLWC2021 by using the existing Our League platform to engage current users and those new to rugby league.

The Our League app has proven to be incredibly valuable in growing first party data for the RFL which has led to the delivery of rich and personalised content experiences direct to fans.

We’re very proud to work with both The RFL and RLWC2021 on this collaborative project and we’re excited to develop existing and new features for the tournament takeover and beyond, which will drive a boost in users and build on the already great legacy of Our League.”

Download the Our League app now!
Android – Google Play Store
iOS – App Store

NEWS: Success Story – The RFL, InCrowd & Rewards4 blend engagement and loyalty

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The RFL and InCrowd have worked together with Rewards4 to expand the highly successful Rewards4Rugby League loyalty programme, utilising fan data-driven push notifications to increase engagement.

Overview

Over the last 3 years, InCrowd has worked closely with The RFL and their partners to produce Our League, a world-class membership platform that boasts over 145,000 active members to date. During planning for the 2020 season a priority was placed on an enhanced integration with loyalty scheme provider Rewards4. For the launch of the platform back in 2017, Rewards4Rugby League, InCrowd and The RFL built a scheme that rewarded predictor performance. The predictor is a season-long engagement feature in which fans votes for match outcomes and try to climb the leaderboard to win money can’t buy prizes. Points won during the season counted towards discounts off a variety of rugby league tickets including The Coral Challenge Cup Final, and the Betfred Super League Grand Final. Since the start of the 2018 Betfred Super League season, nearly 27,000 predictor players have won a combined total of £70,000 worth of Rewards4Rugby League points, from this single touchpoint.

Given the unprecedented level of engagement with Our League’s predictor along with polls and player of the match voting, all parties were keen to build on these the strong foundations and further enhance the Rewards4Rugby League experience for Our League members.

The Solution

In time for the 2020 season, InCrowd, The RFL and Rewards4 collaborated to introduce an advanced push notification integration that would drive further engagement with the Rewards4Rugby League platform, through tailored and automated notifications in relations to points accrued by the fan. With this new development in place, predictor, polls and player of the match participants receive an automatic push notification informing them that they have earned points. This push notification’s call to action is relevant to the individual user’s Rewards4Rugby League account status. If they are already registered, the push prompts them to directly access their account. If new to the Rewards4 programme, the push encourages them to create an account at that moment. 

Integrating this smart push notification system increases the benefits of the loyalty scheme beyond those who perform well on the predictor, to Rugby League fans who take part in any of the fan activations within Our League. The programme now delivers four ways in which Our League members can accrue points:

  • Achieving streaks of correct predictions
  • Participating in the predictor, polls or player of the match voting

How it works

Results

The launch of the Rewards4Rugby League push notification integration has surpassed all expectations, with Our League members responding positively to seeing tangible benefits from their enhanced engagement with the Our League platform. 

Over the course of the 2019 season (February to October), Rewards4Rugby League members participated in 14.4% of the polls, player of the match and predictor questions available.

During the period of February to mid-March 2020 (pre Covid-19), participation from the same users rose to 32.9%, a 128% increase.

Nichola Spencer, Membership Manager, RFL: “For The Rugby Football League the further integration with Rewards4 and InCrowd has been a real win for our Members. We are able to offer members an extra financial incentive which encourages further engagement fans can spend on Rugby League ticketing and retail with no additional costs for The RFL. The integration is now a seamless experience for users and we look forward to adding more engagement touchpoints for them in the future.”

The numbers:

  • 85,000+ interactions with Our Leagues polls, predictor and player of the match vote.
  • 15,177 users have linked their Our League and Rewards4Rugby League accounts since the launch of the programme in 2018, an average of 419 accounts a month.
  • 2,305 accounts were linked in February 2020 as a result of the push notification integration.
  • 9,500 unique members have collected points as a result of Our League engagements.
  • 6,900 of these were existing Rewards4Rugby League members
  • 2,600 were new members
  • 1.7 million cumulative points have been collected.
  • 9, the average Rewards4Rugby League related engagements per member, where points have been collected

Tom Cowgill,  Director Rewards4: “It’s clear from these early results that if you make it simple and seamless for a fan to collect points for engaging with your app and those points actually have a value to the fan then, a) you have happy fans and b) they engage more with the content in your app.  Our integration with InCrowd enables OurLeague members to collect points within the app for voting on man of the match, entering a predictor or a poll.  This has clearly resonated with fans and the feedback has been wholly positive (as is evidenced by the Trustpilot review from Lee).  We are looking forward to working with the RFL and InCrowd to introduce more points collection touchpoints within the app and seeing even higher levels of engagement once the season recommences in August 2020.”

Benefits

  • Fans receive clear, monetary benefits for engaging with the sport that they love. These can be redeemed against ticket purchases such as the Coral Challenge Cup Final.
  • The RFL benefits from both greater engagement and satisfaction from rugby league fans, and increased revenue from discounted purchases by the fans using the programme.

Lee left a five star review on Trust Pilot: “An excellent concept. I earn points for picking man of match for instance by effectively a few clicks. Those points turn into pence which add up to pounds and recently turned the pounds to a voucher which was spent easily. A very good and easy way to earn money for that jersey you want or tickets to see your team.”

Darren Parsons, InCrowd: “We were confident this addition would be well received by the rugby league fanbase that are already highly engaged with the Our League platform, but the numbers seen straight from launch were even more positive than expected. As a result of a few strategies consulted on by InCrowd and actioned by the RFL, there has been a marked increase in engagement across a wide variety of Our League features which is great to see. We’ll continue to monitor this closely and explore how we can develop the offering to fans further.”

RFL’s Our League named as a finalist at the Sports Business Awards

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Our League, the Rugby Football League’s membership scheme for fans, players, coaches, volunteers and viewers, has earned the game further national recognition with a nomination in a second major sports awards ceremony this spring.

Our League is in the running for a Sports Business Award on May 31 in the Best Fan Engagement Programme category. This is the second award nomination of the awards season, having already been included on the shortlist for Best Fan / Community Engagement for the BT Sports Industry Awards on April 25. This second nomination comes after Our League recently celebrated breaking through the 100,000 members milestone, showing just how much Rugby League means to the fans.

Mark Foster, the RFL’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “It’s great to have this recognition for the sport, and also for the people who have worked so hard to establish and develop Our League since it was launched in late 2017.“It was the first Rugby League OTT platform, allowing more matches and features to be broadcast and watched than ever before – and a pivotal part of our strategy for ensuring that Rugby League is well-placed to capitalise on the opportunities provided by the digital revolution.”

Launched in Autumn 2017 in partnership with InCrowd, the membership scheme has improved fan experience and engagement for lovers of Rugby League at all levels of the game, offering exclusive content, predictor games, ticket offers, money can’t buy benefits and prizes via the digital platforms – app (iOS & Android) and website that members can access. This season Rugby League personalities such as Andrew Henderson and Jamie Jones-Buchanan have led extensive coverage of the Betfred Championship and League One competitions, focusing on the best tries and matches through the week – as well as providing live and exclusive coverage every weekend.

This weekend (30th March) focus turns to the Coral Challenge Cup, with the Our League cameras focusing on the famous St Helens amateur club Thatto Heath, and their attempt to spring an upset against North Wales Crusaders. That will be followed by a blockbuster opening fixture from the fast-growing Women’s Super League on April 7, as Wigan Warriors launch their defence of the title against fierce local rivals St Helens.

Darren Parsons, Marketing Account Manager at InCrowd said, “Recently smashing the 100K member mark, Our League continues to be a great project to work on in close collaboration with the Rugby Football League. It’s been amazing to see fans from all corners of the Rugby League community come together and find something to engage with on the platform; it’s fast becoming an absolute must-have, for every fan.”

Download the Our League app on Apple iOS and Android or visit rugby-league.com to sign up for FREE!