Darren Young

@fanexperienceco

Darren is a director at The Fan  Experience Company.

He has a background in working on customer service excellence projects in the UK and Europe, and an MBA that included studying in the United States.

A UEFA Mentor and fan experience and engagement consultant, Darren works with associations, league and clubs across Europe to improve the match-day experience and increase attendance through engagement with fans. He assessed games at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And things are definitely changing. With regulation around the corner, adding to the growing focus that was accelerated by the pandemic emptying stadiums for 18-months, and the brief flirtation with a European Super League, there are signs that fans are going to have it pretty good, pretty soon.

How will we know though? Most men’s leagues in England have kicked off (and half of the EFL clubs are out of one cup for another season already) while the 2024/25 Premier League began this weekend, so an obvious place to look is in the matchday experience?

If fans are more important now, will clubs have focussed on them or will they still be an off-the-field afterthought behind ticket price increases, new kit launches and the latest sponsorship deal with a brand that ‘shares our values (and if it doesn’t, we have others)’? I worry that, even though there much more chatter about ‘the fans’ per se in football, the words will speak louder than any actions do. Overall, the elite clubs have spent a small fortune this summer on players, but how much investment – in time, resource and brainpower – is spent on making the experience for fans a great one? Or just a better one?

I’d wager it’s not as much as you’d think. For a start, size and budget doesn’t mean that much. We see much smaller clubs making far bigger strides. A recent survey called the match day experience at Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu'dire' – like watching ‘a game of Subbuteo through a teabag’ – and proof that what happens on the pitch is not necessarily a reflection of what goes on off it. Although they should try watching the last ten minutes of a game through their fingers, as I did on Saturday as my team defended a 1-0 lead, before judging Subbuteo, or teabags, too harshly.

But if the biggest and best club team in Europe can get it so wrong, and that’s without even going near the Euro 2024 fan experience stories or the debacles that proceeded recent Champions League finals, then what about the clubs closer to home?

Many of the disgruntled fans in the aforementioned survey were from English clubs. But while it’s probably fair to say that the Premier League is ahead of the curve compared to some of their European counterparts, there is still a long way to go.

Not in attracting fans mind. Premier League Chief, Richard Masters, said this week that stadiums are 99% occupied so it’s clearly not about bums on seats, but what else those bums do while they are there? We all know that the matchday experience is about much more than a game of football and most clubs would probably say they are improving – or at least trying to – what a fan gets at a game beyond the 90-100 minutes. And, with such large numbers, they should be getting better.

My question would be ‘how would they know?’ There is a vacuum that has been created since the pandemic in which the majority of PL clubs no longer fully assess their matchday experience in the way they once did. So many improvements are anecdotal at best. And I don’t think many of their owners or chief execs are going to be ‘putting themselves in the fans’ shoes anytime soon. It’s difficult enough to get anyone senior at any club to do that.

If they did, what would they see? More fan zones, that’s for sure. The fan zone is the go-to solution for any club wanting to demonstrate they are ‘down with the fans’. It’s relatively easy to install if you have the space, not cost-prohibitive and ticks a few boxes. And if you want to make it a ‘Family Zone’, simply do what at least one club does and sell pizza in there!

A fan zone does make sense. If ticket prices are going to continue to rise (an average of 6.7% this season), then the fans have to see more value for their buck. And clubs want fans to arrive early – tailgate-style – and spend considerably more time, and money, at the club too as Spurs’ stadium design showed. But is the focus on the fan, or just the additional revenue that they might generate?

But there is also an argument that introducing a fan zone is an easy solution. After all, there is a lot more to the fan experience that starts well before the game and ends after it that is just as important – if not more - as those two hours before kick-off.

I won’t go into detail here but, for a fan and especially a newer or younger one, there is a huge amount that can still be done from providing information, transport and actual guidance right through to the entertainment they get inside the stadium that isn’t generated by the 22 players. Fans expect it too, because football is in the entertainment business, and they see it at any other entertainment venues. If you ask them, they’ll tell you that.

But again, would the clubs know what their fans really think?

This is improving. The buzzword at the moment is engagement. Along with the proposed legislation, it’s got a lot of clubs racing around trying to show they do engage. But what does that mean? Some would have you believe it’s all about talking (and occasionally listening) to fans. Which of course is crucial. But that’s also really just scratching the surface.

Engagement covers much more. The match day experience is naturally a key part as it’s the culmination of all the hard work, but so is the way a club communicates every day, and, most importantly, the way it uses its most potent weapon when trying to engage: people. But too many clubs not only overlook this, they criminally under-utilise its power.

At the moment it’s much easier to dazzle fans with shiny new technology. Every other day, another club announces a partnership with some tech company that is 'going to transform their matchday experience' but a word to the wise. Not all solutions are born equal. Ticket apps might make the experience a little better, but they don’t ‘transform the experience’ any more than providing VAR explanations on social media will. There is fan engagement and then there is fan engagement.

Next they’ll be telling us that cryptocurrency transforms the fan experience. Notice that it’s always the tech and crypto companies telling us what our fans want, rather than the fans themselves?

If only clubs would just take a breath, and swap one of those deals for an addition in the number of here to help staff, a new inflatable, increasing the mascot’s duties or opening an extra retail or refreshments kiosk. Better still, what if they started using their matchday staff properly?

Because it’s people that transform the experience. They are the ones who truly engage with fans and get fans to engage with them. They always have, and always will.

The answer, it turns out, was right in front of us all along.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Want to read more by The Fan Experience Company?

See our White Paper about the balance between safety and the match day experience?

The paper 'It's Just Like Watching Pret' can be viewed by clicking here